


Sixty First Dates

by ozhawk



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Suits (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coulson writes Stucky fanfic, Crack, F/F, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Giveaway Ficlets, M/M, Multi, Tumblr Prompts, Zamboni riding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-07-26 13:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 61
Words: 26,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7576402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozhawk/pseuds/ozhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a celebration of getting to 1250 Followers on my Tumblr, I chose to open up prompts for a short while and accept 60 prompts from a First Date series.</p>
<p>Since this is a ‘First Date’ prompt series, I’m not going to be setting these in any particular AU or covering how the characters met. They did meet, they’re on a date, and that’s where the story begins. There won't be any smut, either. Sorry guys. This one's staying T Rated :)</p>
<p>The first chapter will comprise an Index of the prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Index

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in getting in on this, I still have a few slots left. Please CAREFULLY read [the initial Tumblr post](http://ozhawkauthor.tumblr.com/post/147642436632/alloftheprompts-themed-prompts-first-date) and check [the Trello board](https://trello.com/b/uv9AxX8J) to avoid duplication! You MUST be a follower of mine on Tumblr to take part in this!

**1\. Index**

**2.**   **Daisy/Steve, 15, for mocking-point - _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._**

**3\. Darcy/Sabretooth, 6, for georgiagirlagain - _Character tries to do something sweet for their date._**

**4\. Bobbi/OC (Harvey Specter for Suits), 7, for swifteforeverandalways - _The date is a disaster._**

**5\. Bucky/Darcy/Loki, 3, for yournewfriendshouse - _Character tries to make their date laugh_**

**6\. Steve/Bucky/Jane, 11, for iamartemisday - _Characters do something unusual_**

**7\. Darcy/Remy, 5, for greennonmonster - _Character tries to do something sweet for their date._**

**8. Darcy/Wade, 11, for atheandra _- Characters do something unusual_**

**9\. Daisy/Frank, 10, for stayingsilver - _One of the characters acts very shy_**

**10\. Sam/Sharon, 15, for backwardsandinhighheels - _**Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun.**_**

****11. Bucky/Jemma/Steve, 5, for thestarfishdancer - _Characters share a dessert._** **

****12\. Darcy/Skye, 15, for jeswinchesterwho221b - _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._** **

****13\. Victor/Daisy, 8, for aliitvodeson - _Characters run into someone they know._** **

****14.**** **Bucky/Beth, 7, for kathryn-claire-oconnor - _The date is a disaster._**

 **15.** **Daisy/Steve, 8, for fictional-before-real - _Characters run into someone they know_**

 **16.**   **Bucky/Steve/Skye, 8, for luna-orlha - _Characters run into someone they know._**

**17.  Bucky/Darcy, 15, for barisitrash - _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._**

**18\. Remy/Wanda, 12, for an-enigmatic-avenger - _One of the characters’ favorite music is playing wherever the date is set._**


	2. Daisy/Steve, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Daisy/Steve, 15, for mocking-point**
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In case you’re interested, I created the terrible menu items using[this chart](http://twentytwowords.com/make-your-own-fancy-restaurant-menu-with-this-handy-chart/). I’m not sure any restaurant would actually make something that terrible!_

“Hi,” Steve said, scrambling to his feet a little awkwardly, as the greeter escorted a beautiful young woman to his table. “You must be Daisy.”

 _Holy moly_ , he thought privately. _Natasha’s friend was really, really stunning_. She smiled up at him as he held her chair for her, waving the greeter away.

“I am. It’s lovely to meet you, Steve.” He had the most beautiful manners, and goodness, he was even better-looking than Nat had told her. Not that he seemed aware of it, as he smiled shyly and handed her the menu before re-seating himself and picking up his own menu.

“Have you eaten here before?” Daisy asked, looking around and privately thinking that the place looked very fancy. Steve did fit right in, though, looking preppy and clean-cut in a grey suit with light blue shirt and darker blue tie. She felt a little awkward in her simple strappy flower-patterned dress.

“No. Tony recommended it, though, and he’s very picky, so the food should be really good.” Steve smiled at her before opening the menu.

_Ragu of Pickled Octopus Nested In Wafered Beetroot_

_Purée of Salt-Crusted Sea Scallops Floated on Slow-Poached Chicory_

_Essence of Jellied Calf’s Liver Entwined with Sautéed Aubergine_

Steve blinked. Looked up at Daisy, who was just opening her own menu. Saw her eyes widen as she began to read. She bit down on her lip, looked up and met his eyes.

“What’s a ragu?”

Steve couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. Daisy joined in, her laugh soft and low, her eyes sparkling merrily.

“Everything looks _disgusting_ ,” Steve leaned across the table to whisper conspiratorially. “I’m so sorry. I think Tony might have played a prank on me.”

Daisy couldn’t seem to stop giggling. She fished out a cellphone and took a photo of the menu. “I have to send this to Jemma. She’ll laugh so hard.”

“Do you think she might be able to translate?” Steve asked.

“Is that why I don’t understand a word of it, because it’s not in English?” Daisy’s giggles overcame her completely at that point. “What the hell is samphire anyway?” she managed to choke out.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. You know what, Clint showed me a really good pizza joint not far from here a week ago. Shall we make a run for it?”

Eyes sparkling, Daisy nodded, stuffing her phone back into her purse. Steve grabbed her hand and they both stood, leaving their discarded napkins on the table. The greeter came towards them, a concerned look on his face.

“Is everything alright, sir, miss?”

“Yes! Yep. Great. Unfortunately we have to go. Urgent business,” Steve pulled his phone from his pocket, waved it vaguely.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, sir, perhaps we’ll have the pleasure of your company another time!” the greeter called at their retreating backs.

“Not darned well likely,” Steve said under his breath as they hurried out the front door.

Overcome with giggles, Daisy could go no further than the end of the block before she had to stop, a stitch starting in her side. Steve turned to look at her as she leaned against the wall, still laughing helplessly. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shrugged sheepishly.

“Well, that was a pretty terrible start. I guess - can I call you a cab?”

Finally managing to get her giggles under control with an enormous effort of will, Daisy shook her head, wiped at her streaming eyes with her hands until he offered her a handkerchief. “No - no. Pizza sounds good, though.”

“Yeah?” Steve looked surprised, then smiled, offering his arm. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, smiling up at him.

“Pizza’s really much more my style than fancy restaurants,” Daisy confided.

“Mine too,” Steve admitted with a relieved grin. “Come on. It’s only a couple of blocks!”


	3. Darcy/Sabretooth, 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Darcy/Sabretooth, 6, for georgiagirlagain**
> 
> _Character tries to do something sweet for their date._

Victor took a deep breath and ran a hand over his hair, glad he’d just had it cut short again so that it wouldn’t look too wild. Checking that his coat was straight, he squared his shoulders and knocked on Darcy’s door.

It was Jane who opened it, giving him a warm smile. “Hi, Victor. Do come in. Darcy will be just a moment.”

He nodded a little awkwardly, moving past her. It was a tight squeeze with his bulk in the confined hallway, so he continued hastily into the living area, hearing Jane close the door behind him.

“I’m a couple minutes early,” he realised, looking at the clock on the wall, “sorry…”

“Better than late and Darcy beginning to panic you’d stood her up,” Jane smiled up at him again. “Really, don’t worry.” Heading over to one of the doors leading off the room, she knocked. “Darce, Victor’s here!”

“Be right out!” Darcy called, and it was indeed only a few seconds later that she opened the door.

Victor gaped in astonishment.

On their first meeting, Darcy had been dressed plainly in a bulky wool sweater and baggy pants, a beanie covering up her hair, glasses hiding her eyes. He’d been attracted to her sass more than her looks, though the warm, sensual scent that had teased his nose had also factored into his decision to ask her out. He’d actually been surprised when she said yes.

He certainly hadn’t expected her to transform into this, this _glorious_ woman, wearing a deep red dress that showed off her lusciously sensual form, her dark hair piled in flowing curls and waves, her eyes unhidden by glasses. Full lips painted a deep, succulent red that had him licking his own lips, hungry to taste her.

“Hi, Victor,” pleased with the effect her efforts to transform from frumpy intern to glamorous vamp obviously had on him, Darcy stepped forward. She’d bought new heels for the occasion as well, six-inch ones on lifts which still didn’t have the effect of making her feel anything other than tiny next to him.

“You look… magnificent,” was the only word he could come up with, quite in awe of her beauty and feeling even more honoured that she’d agreed to a date with him.

“Thank you!” Pleased, Darcy smiled. “You look pretty fine yourself,” he’d had a clean shave, and was wearing nicely tailored pants and a button-down shirt beneath his long black leather coat. No tie, but somehow she didn’t think Victor was a tie sort of guy.

“I brought you these,” suddenly remembering, Victor brought forward the vase he’d had tucked under his arm. “Picked them myself. The colour looked like your eyes, I thought…”

“Oh, how lovely!” Darcy reached to take the vase. “What unusual flowers. What are they, I’ve never seen anything like them before?”

“I don’t know the name,” Victor admitted. “Just found them growing wild not far from where I live, and the green stuff…”

“Uh, Darcy,” Jane had come forward to inspect the flowers, “I don’t think you should touch those.”

“Why?” Darcy turned to look at Jane, brow furrowed.

“Well, I’m pretty sure the _green stuff_ is poison ivy, and those pretty blue-violet flowers look like monkshood. Also known as wolfsbane. It’s very poisonous.”

“What?” Horrified, Victor snatched the vase back from Darcy’s hands. “Oh no. Oh hell, Darcy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise!”

“It’s all right.” Recognising his mortification and genuine remorse, Darcy smiled at him. “It was a really lovely thought, Victor. You weren’t to know.”

“I’ll, I’ll, get rid of them,” Victor looked around a bit desperately.

“Why don’t you put them down here,” Jane pointed to the coffee table, “and I’ll have Thor get rid of them for you. You two go enjoy your date.”

Victor thanked her profusely, making Jane smile and shake her head. Darcy wouldn’t let the fact that Victor had accidentally brought her poisonous foliage dissuade her, Jane knew; though Victor was obviously going to need a little convincing. He washed his hands very thoroughly before Darcy convinced him to take her hand and lead her out of there, mouthing thanks at Jane behind his back.


	4. Bobbi/OC, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **3\. Bobbi/OC, 7, for swifteforeverandalways**
> 
>  
> 
> _The date is a disaster_
> 
>  
> 
> _I struggled briefly for an OC before deciding to dip back into my latest favourite show, Suits, again. Specifically, for Harvey Specter._
> 
>  
> 
> _If you don’t know who Harvey is, he’s an extremely high-powered asshole of a corporate lawyer who’s too damn good-looking for his own good._
> 
>  
> 
> _Bobbi takes a gig bodyguarding for some wealthy dude who hires Harvey as his lawyer. Harvey takes one look at Bobbi and can’t help but ask her out. Obviously._

 [](http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/Catherine_Bilson/media/Miscllaneous/gabriel-macht-net-worth-networthq_zpswngrz2qs.jpg.html)

Harvey was tall, and good-looking, and rich. None of those were what had factored into Bobbi’s decision to say yes to a date, though. The truth was, she was utterly and completely bored. Bodyguarding a guy who didn’t seem to have any real enemies was just unbelievably dull, and Harvey Specter at least promised to liven things up. Slightly. He definitely had good taste in restaurants, she thought as she got out of the cab, feeling glad that she’d decided to dress up.

Heads turned as she entered, but Bobbi was quite accustomed to that. “I’m meeting Mr Specter,” she told the greeter, who nodded.

“Of course, madam. This way, please.”

She followed him through the restaurant, finding Harvey already waiting for her at a premium table. Of course. He was talking on the phone, but hung up as soon as he saw her, standing with a welcoming smile.

“Bobbi. You look amazing.”

She smiled, accepting the compliment she’d heard a hundred thousand times before, as Harvey waved off the greeter and held her chair for her to sit. His fingers very lightly brushed her bare shoulder before he moved away and took his own seat.

“What do you recommend?” Bobbi asked once they were left with the menus.

“I’m particularly partial to the eye fillet steak,” Harvey said. “Though I believe everything is good. A friend of mine always has the lobster.”

“You’ve never tried it?”

“I’m Jewish,” he smiled at her. “Not _strictly_ adherent, but I don’t eat pork products or shellfish.”

“Oh, I see!” she nodded back at him. “You don’t mind if I do?”

“Not at all.”

“The lobster salad then, please,” she requested when the waiter came to take their order. Harvey ordered his steak, and a bottle of wine after a glance at Bobbi, who nodded. She’d just have the one glass, anyway.

The food arrived, and looked delicious. Harvey had already proved to be a fascinating dinner companion; Bobbi found herself leaning on her hand listening to him talk, not even analysing him as she did most other people she met. He was a very complicated man, she could already tell that much, and she really didn’t want to have to figure him out just yet.

“This looks good,” she said happily as the server set the plate down in front of her; Harvey smiled, picking up his own knife and fork.

“Enjoy!”

She certainly intended to. It had been a long day with no time for lunch. Diving in with gusto, Bobbi took a big bite and savoured the delicious flavors exploding on her taste buds.

At that moment, her phone rang.

And Harvey’s.

Harvey scowled, swallowed his bite of steak. “I told them not to call unless it was urgent!”

Bobbi had already fished her phone out of her bag. Her phone wouldn’t ring unless it was _very_ urgent.

A minute later they were both dashing from the restaurant, their barely-touched meals abandoned behind them, a couple of hundred-dollar bills Harvey had tossed on the table fluttering in their wake.

Because when some maniac had taken a pot-shot at their mutual client, dinner was going to have to wait.


	5. Bucky/Darcy/Loki, 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **4\. Bucky/Darcy/Loki, 3, for yournewfriendshouse**
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> Character tries to make their date laugh  
> 

“Is he always this glum?” Loki asked Darcy quietly.

“I don’t think so,” she whispered back, as they both watched Bucky walking back towards them from the men’s room. “I’m wondering if he’s just not enjoying himself.”

“Darcy, it is impossible not to enjoy oneself in your company. Even I acknowledge that.”

She had to smile. “I don’t know, then.”

“You did assure him that  _ both _ of us desire his company?” Loki checked.

“Yes!” Darcy shot him an indignant look. “And he accepted with the full knowledge of that, I promise.”

“Hm,” Loki considered Bucky, nearing their table now. “Well. We shall just have to redouble our efforts to amuse him.”

That look on Loki’s face rarely boded well. Darcy groaned inwardly, hoping he wouldn’t put Bucky off entirely with his penchant for wicked pranks. Loki wasn’t called the Trickster for nothing.

“So, Bucky,” Loki said as Bucky sat down, “Has Thor ever told you about the first time he and I went hunting dyrekebeeste together?”

Bucky’s expression showed faint curiosity. “No. What’re they?”

“They bear little resemblance to any living Midgardian creature, though I have learned from your ‘movies’ that a similar creature called a Tyrannosaur once walked this planet.”

Bucky and Darcy both straightened up with interest at that, and Loki smiled. “It is a rite of passage among the youth of the Vanir to hunt them, though the hunt is always undertaken under the supervision of adult warriors. Once Hogun told us of the tradition, though, nothing would do but that Thor and I must kill a dyrekebeeste of our own.”

“How old were you?” Darcy had to ask.

“Ten.”

“Oh God.”

Bucky snickered, hand covering his mouth. “Even Stevie wasn’t as reckless as you two!”

“In my defence, it was Thor’s idea.”

“These stories of yours always are Thor’s idea, and yet somehow you’re always in the thick of them instead of, you know, going to your parents and cutting him off at the knees before he even gets started,” Darcy pointed out. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“I cannot imagine,” Loki said blandly. “ _ Anyway _ . As I was saying…”

The story ended with the two young princes trapped up a very tall tree for two days until a very irate corps of Asgardian throne guards turned up to collect them. Heimdall knew almost at once what had happened, but had decided to leave them up there to teach them a lesson. Loki had quite the gift for storytelling, though, and by the time he’d finished both Bucky and Darcy were crying with laughter, leaning against each other to stay upright.

Smiling and lifting his wine to take a sip, Loki leaned back and listened as Bucky, loosened up at last, launched into a story about his and Steve’s youth in Brooklyn and the trouble they used to get into.


	6. Bucky/Jane/Steve, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **5\. Bucky/Jane/Steve, 11, for iamartemisday**
> 
> _Characters do something unusual_

“So where are we going?” Jane asked cheerfully as Bucky offered his arm for her gallantly. They’d told her to ‘dress casual’. Which Darcy had very firmly told her did _not_ mean her usual oil-stained jeans and oversized checked shirt. Instead she was wearing new skinny jeans and a cute top she strongly suspected Darcy might have borrowed from Natasha. It was quite tight, and did interesting things for the cleavage Jane didn’t actually possess.

Bucky and Steve both kept looking, anyway, though they were subtle about it. It was easy to be subtle from their height vantage, she mused, looking down on her as they were. They both stood quite close to her in the elevator, and she was distracted enough by the sheer masculinity they both exuded to forget that they hadn’t answered her question. At least until the elevator doors pinged open, not on the ground floor or the parking garage, but on a level she’d never seen before.

“Huh… where’s this?” she looked around curiously as they led her out and over to a small door. “I haven’t been here before.”

“We know,” Steve and Bucky both said simultaneously.

“Boy, do we ever know,” Bucky added as they led her through into a small anteroom kind of area. “If you had, you might not be quite so frequently in need of rescuing. And while your frequent need to be rescued actually brought the three of us together, Steve and I both would like to be able to worry about you a _tiny_ bit less when you’re out of our sight.”

“Oh,” Jane said as Steve opened a cabinet and put a handgun down on the counter in front of her. “I’ve never handled a gun…”

“We do know that,” Bucky said dryly. “Being English, it’s understandable. However, you live in a world where way too many people see you as a target. So I’m going to teach you to use the darn gun, and then Stevie’s gonna show you some moves Peggy Carter taught him, about how to kick the crap out of people who are bigger and tougher than you because they don’t expect you to brain them with a stapler.”

Jane had to smile at that. “What’s a passing grade?”

“Unexpectedly braining Steve with a stapler,” Bucky replied, deadpan, “and showing me that you can hit a target at twenty feet.”

“That doesn’t sound so hard.”

Steve grinned, showing her how to hold the gun. “He hasn’t told you yet that his target is the size of a baseball.”

“... that does sound quite hard.”

“That’s why we’ll need a second date, doll,” Bucky smirked down at her. “And a third, and a fourth…”

Jane had to laugh. “Smooth, Barnes. Real smooth!”


	7. Darcy/Remy, 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **6\. Darcy/Remy, 5, for greennonmonster**
> 
> _Character tries to do something sweet for their date_
> 
> _I headcanon that Darcy is Jewish, based on the fact that Kat Dennings is known to be._

“Hi,” Darcy smiled shyly as Remy opened the door to her. He smiled broadly, scooped up her hand and kissed it flamboyantly.

“Darcy! I’m so glad you could come over. I cooked…”

Her nose was already twitching at the delicious scent. “Oh, gosh, you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. I thought we were just gonna order in Chinese food.”

“But then you told me you’d never tried Cajun cuisine.” Remy gave her a crooked little smile, drawing her into the apartment and closing the door behind her. “Which is a travesty, really. So I made étouffée.”

“Um.” Darcy paused, on her way into the kitchen. “What’s in that, exactly?”

“Well in Louisiana crawfish would be the main ingredient, but they’re too hard to get ahold of in New York, so this one’s based on shrimp,” Remy smiled down at her. “What?” when he saw her face fall. “You were eating a roast beef sandwich the first time we met, I know you’re not vegetarian!”

“I’m not vegetarian, you’re quite right, and bonus points to you for being observant,” Darcy made finger guns at him, smiling. “I am, however, Jewish.”

“Oh,” Remy said, “oh, _merde_.” He struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I never thought to ask, what an _imbécile!_ ”

“It’s fine, it’s such a sweet thought,” Darcy was honestly touched by the fact that he’d obviously gone to quite a lot of effort.. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it…”

“ _Mais non!_ ” Remy strode over to the stove, switched it off. “Certainly not, Darcy, I could not enjoy it.” Reaching for a drawer in the kitchen, he opened it and pulled out a sheaf of takeout menus, scattering them on the counter before her. “Whatever you want, we shall have, and I shall not be so stupid as to make assumptions again without asking!”

Even more utterly charmed than she had been on their first meeting, Darcy smiled and edged out the menu for her favourite takeout place. “This place is really good. I love their moo shu chicken.”

“Sounds perfect.” Remy pulled out his phone and dialled. “Moo shu chicken it is!”


	8. Darcy/Wade, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **7\. Darcy/Wade, 11, for atheandra**
> 
> _Characters do something unusual._

“Well, this is a little bit unconventional, but I can probably roll with it,” Darcy said, a little uncertainly, as Wade helped her out of the car. “Is the rink even still open, though? It’s after midnight. And I have to tell you, I haven’t been ice skating in about fifteen years so I’m probably gonna look a lot like a baby giraffe flailing around.”

“Baby giraffes are adorable!” Wade said cheerfully. “But don’t worry, we’re not going to skate. Well. You could if you really wanted to, I suppose?”

“Riiight,” Darcy said even more uncertainly as he led her towards a side door into the ice rink. “So, what _are_ we doing here, then?”

“Breaking in,” Wade answered, pulling a tool from a pouch and bending over to fiddle with the padlock on the door.

“Errrr… yeah, haven’t broken in anywhere in about that long, either…” Wade was a lot quicker at lock-picking than her high-school boyfriend had been, though, she had to admit, as the lock popped open. Honestly, if she hadn’t seen the tool she’d have thought he’d used a key. “And, uh, _why_ are we breaking in?” She was probably a bit old to pull the naive girl just following her boyfriend act, if the police picked them up.

“Because Zamboni rides are, like, the funnest thing _ever_ ,” Wade said sincerely, “and I really, really want you to have that experience for yourself.”

Whatever she’d expected him to say, that hadn’t been it. Darcy found herself laughing as he guided her to a maintenance area at the back of the rink, and two shiny clean Zambonis parked side by side.

Wade actually jumped up and down with glee. “They’ve got _two_! They got a new one since last time I was here!”

“You do this often?” Darcy had to ask.

“This is only my second time. The first time got a bit messy because I had to run over a guy.”

She opened her mouth and then shut it again. She probably didn’t want to know. It was beginning to dawn on her that _plausible deniability_ was highly likely to be impossible with Wade. He seemed to be something of an over-sharer.

On the other hand, Zamboni riding did sound like a fuckton of fun, so what the hell…


	9. Daisy/Frank, 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **8\. Daisy/Frank, 10, for stayingsilver**
> 
> _One of the characters acts very shy_

“So,” Frank said, “I get this feeling that you really don’t want to be here.”

Daisy’s big dark eyes flashed up to his. “It’s not that.”

“No? Because you’ve barely said a word since we got here. I know Karen kinda pushed you at me, but you didn’t say no when I asked if you wanted to get dinner.”

“I did want to get dinner.” Her voice was almost inaudible as she played with her cutlery.

“Just not with me.”

“Yes, with you.” A faint blush touched her cheeks. “I wouldn’t have said yes otherwise.”

“But you’re having second thoughts now?” he pressed. “I mean, you knew who I was from the first moment. I know it’s a lot to take, the whole Punisher thing, but then you’re Quake…”

“Actually the fact that you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself is quite a large part of the reason why I _did_ say yes,” she cut him off. “At least - that factored into my thinking. I wouldn’t have said yes otherwise, no matter how hard Karen was trying to throw me at you.”

Frank’s hard mouth quirked up slightly, and he sat back and thumbed his chin thoughtfully, surveying her. She blushed a little more and looked down at her hands.

“What is it, then?” he asked, puzzled. “You were chatty enough earlier, when we were with Matt and Karen.”

Daisy mumbled something inaudible, then, when he asked her again, finally looked him in the eye and said almost defiantly; “I didn’t realise then quite how attracted I was to you.”

It was Frank’s turn to blush and be speechless.


	10. Sam/Sharon, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **9\. Sam/Sharon, 15 for backwardsandinhighheels**
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._
> 
> _Occurs prior to Civil War and disregards Civil War canon._

“For a determinedly single guy, Steve sure does have a lot of really stunning lady friends,” was the first thing Sam said when Sharon stood up and smiled at him.

She immediately laughed. “Bless him, he doesn’t have a clue how to flirt. Or deal with flirting. I cannot imagine how he coped on tour with those USC girls back in the day.”

“Me neither! And Natasha keeps throwing all her beautiful friends in his way and he keeps runnin’ for cover. It’s kind of hilarious to watch, actually.”

Sharon grinned, putting her hand on Sam’s gallantly offered arm. He was wearing a red and grey fleece jacket, the fabric soft under her fingers. It was how she knew to identify him when he approached; they’d agreed to meet at a particular bench in Central Park. She’d run into Steve quite by chance after being assigned to the CIA’s New York office; literally run into him while out on a morning run. After coffee and a catch-up, he’d said quite unexpectedly that he had a friend he had a feeling she’d like.

Steve might not have much luck in his own relationships, but he certainly had a talent for matchmaking, Sharon thought as Sam led her onwards through the park.

“Hey,” he paused, “would you like a pretzel? That stand there, the guy does really good pretzels.”

“I’d love one,” she decided, and Sam bought two and handed hers over. They both doused them in mustard and grinned at each other before taking huge, inelegant bites.

“Nom,” Sharon said around hers, and Sam made equally happy noises. Walking onwards in the sunshine, eating and talking between bites, they both found themselves having a thoroughly good time. So much so that when it was time for Sharon to head back to her office, she found herself asking Sam if he’d like to have dinner sometime.

“Any time,” Sam said enthusiastically. He had a tiny smear of mustard on the end of his nose. It was completely adorable and she couldn’t help but reach up to rub it off. Sam went cross-eyed trying to see what she was doing, making Sharon burst out laughing.

“It’s mustard. I was just getting it for you.” She showed him the yellow smear on the end of her finger, before fishing a tissue from her pocket and wiping it.

“Oh God, I’ve been wandering around with that on my nose,” Sam said with a groan, rubbing at the offending spot. “I must look like such a dork.”

“A very cute dork,” Sharon said with a smile. “So, dinner? Tonight? About seven…?”

Sam smiled back at her. “Love to!”


	11. Bucky/Jemma/Steve, 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **10\. Bucky/Jemma/Steve, 5, for thestarfishdancer**
> 
> _Characters share a dessert_

“Oh, my goodness,” Jemma put her hands to her mouth and let out a startled laugh as their waitress set down an absolutely gigantic sundae glass in front of her. “I’ll never eat all that!”

Bucky and Steve had to laugh at her expression. “You did say you had a sweet tooth,” Steve chortled.

“Yes, but that’s bigger than my _head_. Could we possibly get two extra spoons?” Jemma gave the waitress a winning smile, and two spoons were produced from an apron pocket with a flourish and a chuckle.

“Did you know how big the desserts were when you said you weren’t going to order one?” Jemma asked a little suspiciously as they both started dipping in.

“We didn’t. Honest,” Bucky claimed. “It’s good, though.” He held his spoon out to Jemma, since she hadn’t tried any yet. She hesitated, looking up at him with those big hazel eyes that had made his gut tighten since the first time he set eyes on her, before opening her mouth and taking the spoon into it, sucking the mouthful of sweet treat off.

Steve had frozen, spoon halfway to his mouth, just staring.  Jemma hummed with pleasure, and Steve’s eyes slid over to Bucky a little desperately.

Bucky just sat there immobile too, even when Jemma had let the spoon out of her mouth, murmured a thank-you and dug into the gooey treat with her own spoon.

“She’s gonna be the death of us,” he said finally to Steve, as Jemma just carried on eating, oblivious to the two stunned, disturbingly turned-on super-soldiers gazing at her.

“Yup,” Steve agreed dismally.


	12. Darcy/Skye, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **11\. Darcy/Skye, 15, for jeswinchesterwho221b**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._
> 
>  
> 
> _A non-powered AU. They met through the hacking community, obviously, probably did a lot of online snarking at each other, and finally decided to meet._

Skye’s phone beeped softly, and she glanced down at it, then up again quickly, looking around the cafe. Her date had just walked in. It couldn’t be… surely TaserGrrl couldn’t be the gorgeously curvaceous young woman ordering a double whip mocha latte at the counter. Skye had been expecting more a Tank Girl type, all camo tank top and short-shaven hair.

“Cheers,” Darcy said to the barista, took a deep breath and nervously fished her phone from her pocket. She was a little in awe of SkyeNet, had been ever since the other hacker caught her in a hack and not only helped her out, but helped her cover her tracks on the way back out. They’d snarked at each other online a few times and finally Darcy had hesitantly suggested meeting in person.

 _What, like a date?_ SkyeNet had asked, as usual cutting right through any crap.

 _Yeah, if you like_ , Darcy replied a little nervously, expecting to be cut off at the knees and rejected. She had the feeling SkyeNet was a good bit older than she was. Nobody got to be that good at hacking without a hell of a lot of experience. But, to her surprise, SkyeNet had agreed.

Except, there was nobody in the cafe who remotely resembled the thirty-plus woman Darcy had envisaged. There was nobody on their own at all, actually, except for the beautiful brunette girl sitting in a booth, looking straight at her and smiling.

It couldn’t be. Darcy stared.

“Order for TaserGirl,” the barista said behind her.

“That’s Taser _Grrl,_ I believe,” Skye said with a grin, getting up and taking the cup. Taking Darcy’s hand in her free one, she tugged gently, leading the other girl to her booth. “Hey. I’m Skye. So what do I call you?”

“... my girlfriend?” Darcy said, a bit stunned by just how young and pretty Skye was.

Skye smiled widely. “That sounds good, actually.”

“... Darcy. I meant Darcy.”

“Either or.” Skye’s brown eyes sparkled at her mischievously, and she gave Darcy’s hand a squeeze before reluctantly letting go. “So. The Taser. I’m guessing it’s probably not metaphorical, since you’re gorgeous enough that you probably have to beat guys off with a stick?”

Darcy grinned. “I could say the same for you!”


	13. Victor/Daisy, 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **12\. Victor/Daisy, 8, for aliitvodeson**
> 
> _Characters run into someone they know._

Victor was seriously adorable under that growly, gruff exterior, Daisy had decided by the end of their dinner. Sure, he looked imposing, and sounded it too, with that rasping voice that seemed to come straight up from his boots (and did very interesting things to her insides, along with the way he looked at her), but she was pretty sure that he was just a giant teddy bear really. To people he liked, anyway.

Leaving the restaurant, he offered his arm gallantly for her in an old-fashioned gesture that made her smile with delight. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, uncaring that even in the four-inch heels she’d chosen to wear, her head came nowhere near his shoulder.

(Actually, she did care. It was quite a nice feeling. And considering that SHIELD had run across Victor single-handedly demolishing a Hydra base, she had every confidence that he could more than look after himself, no matter what they might run into.)

It was a couple of blocks to where they’d left the car, and a pleasant night. Victor carefully moderated his long stride to match’s Daisy’s shorter steps. She looked so physically delicate, so fragile; but the first time they’d met, she threw him across the room in alarm. He’d known then that he’d found his mate, the only woman strong enough to match him, but he must move slowly, cautiously. Courting a lioness was no easy undertaking.

A faint scent teased at his nose, a wisp of memory on the wind. Distracted by the girl on his arm, it took Victor a second longer to react than he might have otherwise, and that second was all Logan needed.

Daisy was knocked over by the force of the collision, her hand knocked away from Victor’s arm. She shoved herself painfully to hands and knees, head spinning slightly, to see Victor fighting - in earnest - with another massive guy who had obscenely long blades coming out of his hands.

“LOGAN JAMES HOWLETT!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Logan froze with shock, just long enough for Victor to get the upper hand, a powerful arm snapping around Logan’s torso from behind, immobilising his arms. Daisy dragged herself upright, stormed over and slapped Logan hard across the face.

“How _dare_ you attack my date!”

“Your… _date_?” Logan blinked down at her, astonished. They’d run across each other when she’d been on her own for a while after Hive and Lincoln, worked together briefly to take down some mutual enemies, and parted with a healthy mutual respect. “ _Victor_ is _your_ date?”

“Yes he is, and though the two of you have clearly had your differences in the past, I am ordering you to put it the hell aside and make up. Victor, let go of him, please.”

Though they both dwarfed her, Victor never even considered disobeying. He did rumble “Hundred years of bad blood ain’t so easy to forget.”

Logan growled at him. Daisy flung up her hands and sent a powerful wave of vibration between them, knocking them apart. “Blades away,” she ordered Logan. “And your claws too, Victor, don’t think I can’t see them.”

A small grin quirked Logan’s mouth as he retracted his blades with a _snickt_. “Never figured you for the kind who likes to let a woman boss him around,” he said to Victor.

Victor shrugged, a grin growing on his own face. “What can I say. I have a thing for powerful women.”

“Daisy might just be able to handle you, at that.” Logan hesitated, then offered his hand to shake. “But if I ever hear that you hurt her, I’ll come lookin’ for you,” he warned, gripping firmly onto Victor’s hand.

“I’m pretty sure you’ll have to get in line!”


	14. Bucky/Beth, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **13\. Bucky/Beth, 7, for kathryn-claire-oconnor**
> 
> _The date is a disaster_

Somehow, Bucky had expected it to be his fault, for whatever reason, if the date didn’t go well. Social situations were still pretty nerve-wracking for him, and he lived in constant fear of some Hydra soldier who happened to know a trigger code finding him and turning him into an automaton trapped inside his own head again.

Or, on a smaller scale, he figured he’d humiliate himself in this fancy restaurant by eating with the wrong fork or something, and Beth would be embarrassed to be seen with him.

He really hadn’t expected Beth to walk into the restaurant looking absolutely drop-dead gorgeous in a stunning red dress and heels, smile and wave as she saw him and head over, only to catch her heel on something, trip over and grab at a table to save herself. She only managed in sweeping off the entire tablecloth and all six meals that had just been laid out on it, cutlery, wine glasses, candlestick and all. Everything landed in a heap on the floor on top of Beth.

On fire, since the candle tipped sideways and set fire to the tablecloth.

The six diners, and the waiter who’d just set down the last plate, all just gaped at Beth. Bucky, however, reacted instantly, leaping from his chair and sprinting over, whipping the burning cloth off her and stamping on it to put the flames out.

“Beth, are you all right?” he went to one knee beside her. She was lying still, her blond hair covering her face.

“No. I am dead of embarrassment,” she said in a very tiny voice.

“I’ll get you out of here,” he promised softly, dug in his pocket and pulled out several hundred-dollar bills. Dropping them on the now-bare table, he said “Sorry for the inconvenience!” scooped Beth up into his arms and hurried out. She buried her face in his shoulder. He was pretty sure she was crying.

“Don’t cry, Beth, don’t cry,” Bucky hurried to where he’d left the car. Blessedly it was a fancy modern thing that promptly unlocked its doors as he approached. He opened the passenger door and carefully set her down on the seat, brushing back her hair to look at her face - only to find that the tears running down her face were from the hysterical paroxysm of laughter she was in the throes of. Sitting back on his heels, he grinned at her.

“You certainly know how to make an entrance, doll!”


	15. Daisy/Steve, 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **14\. Daisy/Steve, 8, for fictional-before-real**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters run into someone they know_

Steve Rogers had been the last person Daisy had expected to meet while she was on the run from SHIELD. But he’d literally walked up beside her one day at a train station, glanced down at her, and said,

“I can offer an alternative to the lone vigilante route, if you’re interested. Quake.”

Startled, she’d looked up at him, recognised him instantly despite the baseball cap shading his face, and gaped.

“Wanda, in particular, is looking forward to meeting you. She’s fed up of being the only girl in the gang.”

She couldn’t help but laugh, and put her hand on his arm when he offered it.

That had been three months ago. She and Steve had been stepping around each other since. He’d finally bitten the bullet and asked her out to lunch - just the two of them - a few days ago. Daisy suspected that Sam and probably Wanda had strong-armed him into it, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. So she took him to her favourite restaurant in Houston, where they were currently not-hiding-out, and they were sitting in a booth considering what to order when a tall black man wearing sunglasses stopped at their table.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused Coulson, young lady?” Fury said to Daisy with a disapproving frown. “And me, frankly, I had a devil of a time tracking you down!” He didn’t even look at the baseball-capped, glasses-wearing schmuck with Daisy. Some guy the little madam was hiding out with to keep herself off the radar, no doubt.

“Did you just say _Coulson_?” Steve said incredulously.

Fury did a double-take.

“ _Rogers_?”

“Oh, this is gonna be _good_.” Daisy took a sip of her beer and sat back to watch the fireworks, grinning. “Go on, Fury. Tell him all about how you and Coulson mutually decided that he needed to officially stay dead to ‘keep the Avengers together’. Since that plan’s worked _ever_ so well, so far.”

“... Please stop talking now.”

“Only if you’re gonna start.” Daisy smirked at him, and moved over, patting the seat beside her. “Do take a seat.”


	16. Bucky/Steve/Skye, 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **15\. Bucky/Steve/Skye, 8, for luna-orlha**
> 
> _Characters run into someone they know._

Of all the bad timing… Daisy cursed under her breath.

“Language,” Steve said absently, and she cursed again, silently this time, at herself for forgetting about super-soldier hearing.

“What’s the matter, doll?” Bucky glanced down at her, where she walked in between them.

“I’ve just seen someone I’d rather avoid,” but Daisy had the sinking feeling that if she’d spotted Fitz, there were at least a dozen agents around that she _couldn’t_ see right now. Steve and Bucky were dressed incognito for their date, caps shading their distinctively recognisable faces. All hell was about to break loose if SHIELD had somehow spotted her, though.

“Oh, no problem,” Steve said immediately, glancing around. “In here!” He promptly hustled her into a nearby coffee shop, before she could even protest. Bucky followed them, closing the door behind him.

“Daisy,” Coulson stood up from his seat at a table near the front. About an eighth of a second later he recognised Steve and his eyes bugged out. “Captain Rogers!”

“ _Coulson?_ ” Steve said in utter incredulity.

Phil’s mouth opened and closed, and Daisy had to grin, recognising his dilemma. He wanted to deny it, but lying to Captain America was quite outside his capabilities. “Yes,” he said finally.

“You’re dead!”

“Well… so were you, once. And Sergeant Barnes there,” Phil nodded at Bucky, who, sensing that things just got interesting, folded his arms and crooked an intimidating eyebrow.

“Fury knew,” Steve realised. “Hell, _Hill_ knew!” when Coulson looked guilty. “God damn it.”

“Language,” Bucky mouthed at Daisy, who had to bite her lips to keep from laughing. Coulson’s expression, when being targeted with the full force of Steve’s best Captain-America-Is-Disappointed-In-You stare, was absolutely hilarious. He looked like a small boy caught raiding the sweet shop. She decided to pile on a bit more guilt.

“And now you’ve ruined our date,” she infused her tone with as much disappointment as possible.

“Date…?” Coulson looked from Steve, to her, to Bucky. “You… _three…_ are on a… _date_?”

“Yup.” Coulson thought Daisy didn’t know about his secret Ao3 account and the wildly popular Stucky fanfic he posted there. He’d forgotten why he recruited her in the first place, she thought, raising her eyebrows at him. “And now you’ve ruined it. Cap’s_Number_1_Fan.”

Phil turned first white, then alarmingly red. “Who, me? You never saw me. I was never here. I need to be still dead as far as Stark is concerned,” he said to Steve before bolting out of the coffee shop as though being chased by wolves.

Steve turned to Daisy in utter bewilderment. “What on _earth_ just happened?”

“I think we’d better just sit down and order coffee,” Daisy decided. “Give Coulson a chance to call off all his people. And this is going to take _quite a while_ to explain!” She grinned. “First of all, I need to explain what RPF means…”


	17. Bucky/Darcy, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **16\. Bucky/Darcy, 15, for barisitrash**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._

Darcy would never have pegged Steve Rogers for a matchmaker. And certainly not a _good_ matchmaker, considering how hopeless the guy was with his own love life.  She’d only agreed to go on a blind date with his recently un-brainwashed old buddy because, well, she _did_ kind of owe Steve her life after that alien goo incident last time Jane almost, but not quite, built a Bifrost.

So when he’d given her a pitiful look from those baby blues and said “Darce, you’re the most normal person I know, and Bucky needs that, he needs to do normal things. Go out on a date with him? For me? Please?” she really hadn’t been able to say no.

After all, being the most normal person in a world of superheroes was kind of a compliment.

“Fine,” she made finger guns at Steve. “But you’re payin’, and by _paying_ I mean somewhere really nice. I haven’t had a really nice meal out in longer than I can remember. Champagne, too.”

Steve grinned. “Deal.”

Which was how Darcy found herself sitting opposite absolutely the most handsome man she’d ever seen, with the best steak she’d ever tasted now sitting comfortably in her stomach. Bucky was hilarious and charming; she had the feeling he was nervous, anxious to please, but really, Darcy couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun on a date. Had she _ever_ had this much fun on a date? She doubted it, and she’d only had a couple of glasses of the champagne.

Bucky couldn’t believe his luck. When Steve had sold him on the idea of going out on a blind date with “this really nice, normal girl I know” Bucky had envisaged someone boring, even if she wasn’t too hard on the eyes. But Darcy was not only pretty, she was delightful; sweet and sassy, just the kind of girl he’d always had a weakness for.

He’d felt awkward at first in the fancy restaurant, but Darcy had instantly put him at ease, telling him a hilarious anecdote about her day that had him grinning, and then pulling out her phone and showing him a funny cat video she’d seen. Bucky found himself chortling with glee, relaxing and thoroughly enjoying himself within minutes of being in her company.

Neither of them wanted the date to end. It wasn’t until they were the last people in the restaurant, with a couple of annoyed-looking staff members ostentatiously cleaning up around them, that Bucky sighed.

“We should go. Darcy, thank you so much for agreeing to this. I know Steve railroaded you into it, but I can’t tell you how much it means to me, I’ve had such a wonderful time. I hope I haven’t been too dull a  companion.”

Darcy smiled at him, shaking her head. “Not dull at all, I’ve had a great time too, Bucky. Steve might actually have a career as a matchmaker, if the superheroing ever gets to be too much for him.”

That made Bucky laugh again. As they left the restaurant together and Darcy looked up and down the street, hoping for a cab, he shoved his hands in his pockets a bit awkwardly. “Perhaps, um, perhaps you’d consider comin’ out with me again sometime?”

Startled that he would even think that she might _not_ say yes, Darcy stared up at him curiously. “But of course?” she said blankly. “I would absolutely love to!”

Bucky smiled broadly with relief. Darcy smiled at him.

“You really thought I might say no?”

He shrugged in an aw-shucks kind of way, and she couldn’t resist stepping closer and reaching up, pressing a kiss on his cheek. Then a second, closer to the corner of his mouth. Pausing, she arched an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to get with the program.

Bucky couldn’t believe his luck, but he was also not about to turn down a gilt-edged invitation like Darcy had just offered. Tentatively, he put his arms around her and lowered his face to hers. She let her eyes drift shut and leaned closer, soft lips parting.

Lips met, clung. The kiss deepened, softened again. Bucky finally lifted his head, slowly, to find Darcy smiling up him.

“Does that answer your question of whether I’d like a second date?”


	18. Remy/Wanda, 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **17\. Remy/Wanda, 12, for an-enigmatic-avenger**
> 
> _One of the characters’ favorite music is playing wherever the date is set._

It took Remy a little while to notice that Wanda appeared to be tapping her foot along to the music that was playing. He hadn’t really been listening to it, just taking it as background noise, more interested in Wanda herself.

“You like this song?” he asked curiously.

Wanda’s eyes sparkled as she smiled at him. “I do! They’ve been playing really good music all night, but this is one of my favourite songs.” Her smile turned a little sheepish. “I know it’s not really ‘cool’ to like Taylor Swift, but I don’t care. I think she’s great.”

Remy had absolutely not the faintest idea who Taylor Swift was, but he made a mental note to look up all of her music and listen to it. If Wanda liked something, Remy had every intention of enjoying it too, because he liked _Wanda_ very much indeed.

“Why is it not ‘cool’ to like her?” he asked curiously, thinking that the singer had a great voice and the melody was attractive to the ear.

“I don’t know, people just rag on her all the time. Especially now she’s started dating the guy who played Loki in that movie they made about the Battle Of New York,” Wanda made a face. “She’s got a right to be happy just like anyone else!”

“Of course,” Remy murmured, thinking that Wanda’s passion was quite enchanting. He only hoped that he could inspire her to the same heights. Or greater. Holding his hand out towards her, he asked “Would you care to dance?”

Wanda blinked at him, glanced around the restaurant. “There isn’t really a dance floor…”

Remy shrugged elegantly. “I do not care, if you do not, _ma belle_.”

She looked uncertain for a moment, and then shrugged. “All right. Why not!”

As she stood and took his hand, stepping forward into the circle of his arms, the song changed and Wanda’s face changed to pure delight. “Ohhh… my favourite song!”

“What is it called, _ma belle_?” Remy asked, pulling her closer. Her pale cheeks blushed prettily.

“ _Love Story_.”

“How _very_ appropriate.”


	19. Jemma/Rollins, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **18\. Jemma/Rollins, 15, for mietzemaus78**
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._

_Oh no, he’s hot_ , was Jemma’s first thought on opening her door to a knock and finding a shyly smiling giant there, towering over her. Daisy had set up the date, insisting that there was a new guy transferred in to head her STRIKE team from the _Iliad’s_ crew who Jemma would really like.

“Yes, but would he seriously be interested in dating a science nerd?” Jemma asked skeptically.

“I caught him reading _Scientific American_ on his tablet when we were on the way back from that mission in Nicaragua the other day. Anyone who reads that for funsies will appreciate your brilliance, Jems. Just say you’ll let him take you out,” Daisy cajoled.

Jemma had agreed mainly to get Daisy off her back. She’d fully intended to surreptitiously check ‘Jack’ out at some point, but all her friends seemed to have caught wind of the blind date and conspired against her to keep her from getting over to the part of the base where the tactical teams spent their time.

So, against her better judgement, here she was opening her door to a man she’d never even laid eyes on, preparing to go out to dinner with him while wearing a very nice new dress, makeup, perfume and even earrings. Daisy had pushed her into getting ‘done up’ as she called it, too.

“Done up like a dog’s dinner,” Jemma muttered to herself as she pulled open the door and looked up - and then up again, at the man standing there. He had to be about the same size as Mack, which meant a veritable giant compared to Jemma. A thin white scar from lip to chin which pulled his shy smile slightly crooked didn’t detract from his good looks in the slightest, Jemma realised with some dismay.

_CRAP. Daisy knows me and my taste in men all too well._

Jack’s tongue felt too big and clumsy for his mouth as he stared down at the tiny, beautiful woman who’d opened the door. Afraid he’d say something stupid, or worse, just mangle his words entirely, he just smiled hopefully and held out the small gift he’d elected to bring her.

“Oh!” Jemma gaped as Jack held out a pot containing a single, unusually coloured orchid. “Oh, gosh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like that before!”

“Thought you might like it,” he mumbled.

“It’s lovely! Do come in. Does it need water, right now?” she took the pot carefully from his hands. “I’ll take it to the greenhouses first thing tomorrow. What a thoughtful gift, Jack… oh, I didn’t introduce myself yet, I’m Jemma…”

“I know.” Feeling awkward about going into her room, he shoved his hands in his pockets and waited at the door, trying not to loom too much. “No, I watered it earlier. Shouldn’t need anything for a day or so.”

“Excellent,” Jemma considered the delicate flower. “I might put it on my dresser here for tonight, then.”

Jack nodded silently, looking around. The room was very Jemma, pretty and fresh. He carefully kept his eyes on her and away from the bed. She came back to his side a moment later, smiling up at him, reaching to shake his hand.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Jack.”

He wasn’t sure what instinct made him lift her dainty little hand to his lips, maintaining eye contact as his lips lightly brushed her knuckles, but he knew it had been the right move when a soft blush bloomed on her cheeks.

“Likewise,” he rumbled softly. “Shall we go?”


	20. Maria/Remy, 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **19\. Maria/Remy, 14, for stereden**
> 
> _Characters go to a fun fair._

“Dress casual,” Remy had said, when she’d asked where they’d be going for the evening. Maria looked in despair at her wardrobe. She didn’t _own_ anything casual. _Casual_ was not a thing that Maria Hill did. She picked up her phone and texted Natasha a single word.

 _Yikes_.

Natasha arrived ten minutes later and threw a pair of jeans at her before departing again without a word.

“Oh. Jeans. That’s what casual means,” Maria muttered to herself. “Right.”

The jeans were tight enough to look painted-on, but no worse than her SHIELD skinsuit had been. She paired them with combat boots - _that’s casual too, right?_ \- and a cute top she found lurking in the back of the closet. She didn’t remember buying it, but then it might be one of the armload of things Pepper had thrust at her after last time Tony ‘apologised’ by buying her yet another brand new designer wardrobe full of clothes.

Remy certainly appreciated her efforts, if the appreciative smile he gave her when she opened the door was anything to go by. He looked pretty darn good himself in jeans, Maria thought, getting a good look at the back view as he opened the car’s passenger door for herself gallantly. _Maybe casual isn’t so bad_. She smiled to herself privately.

“You’re kidding,” she said in disbelief as Remy parked the car in the crowded lot not too many minutes later. “A _funfair_?”

“ _Mais oui_. Tell me, Maria, when was the last time that you went somewhere simply and explicitly to have fun?”

She opened her mouth… and shut it again. She really couldn’t think of anything. Remy grinned at her, held out his hand.

“Come, then. Remy shall buy you cotton candy.”

She didn’t tell him that she’d never had cotton candy in her life and had no idea if it tasted any good or not. She didn’t want him to give her that pitying look people always got when they found out about her childhood.

Half an hour later, hopped up on more sugar than she’d ever consumed in one sitting before, Maria levelled a water pistol and shot down six ducks without batting an eyelash.

“ _Magnifique!_ ” Remy applauded her as the annoyed stallholder approached, grimacing and directing Maria to select her prize. She promptly pointed to a large yellow dog stuffed toy.

“It looks a bit like Clint’s dog. Lucky will probably like it. Actually, knowing Lucky he’ll probably _eat_ it,” she confided to Remy as they walked away, the dog stuffed under Maria’s arm.

He grinned down at her. “Well, you could always come back and win him another one.”

“I could. What’s that?” she pointed.

“Bumper cars?” Remy gave her a slightly odd look. “Have you not tried them before?”

“No, it looks like fun!” she darted over to get in line, grinned over her shoulder at him. “Prepare for whiplash, LeBeau!”

He laughed, helplessly charmed, wondering what sort of childhood she’d had that she’d never seen bumper cars before. Didn’t every child get to go to carnivals and funfairs? Even he, orphaned Louisiana bayou brat, had sneaked in and enjoyed himself. Pushing the thought aside, he joined her in the queue. Whatever her past had been, he, Remy LeBeau, fully intended to make sure that Maria had the time of her life tonight.


	21. Bucky/Beth, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **20\. Bucky/Beth, 11, for marvelfanuniverse**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters do something unusual._

Beth had agreed quite delightedly when Bucky asked her for a date, so he was pretty confident that she actually wanted to. It was just that she was apparently too busy, between her work at the cafe and the college she was attending night school at, to actually _go_ on a date with him.

“When, then?” he asked her with despair as she brought him his coffee, smiling brightly at him. “Please, it doesn’t matter what we do, where we go - I just want a chance to spend time with you, get to know you better.”

Beth smiled, looked thoughtful. “Y’know - I go to the dog shelter two afternoons a week and walk dogs. I don’t suppose you’d like to come walk with me?”

“I’d love to come walk with you,” Bucky said enthusiastically. “I like dogs.”

It was actually true, he did love dogs. He wasn’t entirely sure that the creature Beth brought out on a lead when he arrived at the shelter actually _was_ a dog, though. It was small, hairy, snaggle-toothed and quite the ugliest little beast he had ever seen.

“Here, just hold Fluffy for a minute,” Beth handed him the lead.

“ _Fluffy_?” Bucky said incredulously, but she’d already hurried back inside to get another dog. “More like Fugly,” he muttered under his breath, looking down at the mutt, who looked back at him from… odd eyes? “You poor little bugger, I don’t suppose you can held the way you look,” he said with a sigh. Fluffy sniffed at his boots. “Don’t you dare take a piss on them. Sit.”

A little to his surprise, the ugly little dog sat, looking at him expectantly. Bucky crouched down. “Shake?”

A hairy little paw was presented.

“You’re actually quite cute. Roll over?”

Beth came back out leading a large, handsome Rottweiler to find Bucky crouched down and Fluffy doing ‘sit up and beg’ for dog treats from Bucky’s pocket. She couldn’t help but smile at how adorable Bucky looked, smiling at the ugly little dog.

“He’s such a smart dog, it’s a shame,” she said.

“What’s a shame?” Bucky looked up at her.

“Nobody will adopt him because of the way he looks. I wish I could have him, but my apartment building is very strictly _no pets allowed_. Fortunately this shelter has a no-kill policy.”

Frowning, Bucky straightened up. “What exactly would I need to do, to adopt a dog?”

Beth smiled.

They ended up handing the Rottweiler off to someone else to walk and going shopping for Fluffy instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Click [here](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b2/72/f1/b272f1e0989ddf75fa190055a5804477.jpg) to see my fancast image for Fluffy! (Be warned that it is a very fugly dog indeed).


	22. Bucky/Jemma, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **21\. Bucky/Jemma, 15, for bohojess**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._

“Wait,” Jemma attempted to backpedal right at the door of the restaurant. “Why is Steve here? And who is that with him? You said it was just the two of us going out for a drink!”

“With the two of _them_ ,” Daisy shoved her firmly in the small of the back, propelling her inside.

“But you and Steve will spend all night gazing dreamily into each other’s eyes and I’ll have to talk to whoever that is… oh,” Jemma suddenly realised what was happening. “Oh my God, you terrible woman, this is a _set up_!”

“Technically the term is _blind date_ ,” Daisy corrected, hooking her arm around Jemma’s waist and leading her towards the bar.

“Does _he_ know he’s been set up?” Jemma hissed frantically in her ear.

“I _may_ have mentioned that I was bringing along a friend.”

The ‘he’ in question turned around as Steve stood up with a broadly welcoming smile for Daisy, and Jemma almost fell through the floor with shock as she recognised him.

Of course Steve and Daisy at once started kissing quite passionately, leaving Bucky to look away from them and smile at Daisy’s friend.

“Hi. You must be Jemma.”

“And you’re Bucky Barnes,” Jemma squeaked, in a voice which she was immediately sure was probably only audible to dogs and bats.

And, apparently, super-soldiers. He smiled down at her, a dimple flashing in his stubble-shadowed chin, and nodded. “Just call me Bucky.” He gestured to a seat at the bar. “What can I get you to drink?”

For a moment she considered getting flaming drunk - it would certainly help head off her current urge to flee for the bathroom and lock herself in there all night - but just as quickly decided against. “Just a cold beer would be nice,” she nodded at the bottle on the bar in front of Bucky. “It’s been a long day.”

“I hear ya,” Bucky nodded, gestured to the bartender. Ordering two more beers, he waited until Jemma took a seat before sitting again himself. “So,” he looked at her eagerly, “tell me, what exciting science things are you working on at the moment?”

She opened her mouth to laugh and say that he wouldn’t be interested, when, unaccountably, her mind flashed back to a file on him she’d found in Peggy Carter’s archives at the Playground. ‘ _Barnes was fascinated by science and technology in all forms_ ’ Director Carter had written.

“Well,” she said slowly, “actually I’ve been studying the similarities between the altered DNA of Inhumans who’ve passed through Terrigenesis, and the DNA of, let’s call them _other superhumans_. Like Ms. Maximoff and…”

“And me an’ Steve,” Bucky’s blue eyes became even brighter, if that were possible, and he looked even more interested. “That’s really neat! Can you tell me about what you’ve discovered?”

They were so deeply lost in their conversation that Steve had to grab Bucky’s arm and shake it to get his attention.

“What?” Bucky turned his head with a scowl. “Can’t ya see I’m talkin’ to Jemma?”

“I can indeed, but the bar’s closing,” Steve said, grinning. “We gotta go.”

Astonished, Jemma looked at her watch to realise that five hours had indeed passed by in what seemed the blink of an eye. Her stomach growled just then, and Bucky, in the act of getting up from his seat, smiled down at her.

“Reckon I’m hungry too, doll. There’s an all-night pizza place just along the street. Shall we carry on the conversation there?”

“I’d love to,” Jemma happily put her hand on his gallantly offered arm, and the pair of them left without a backward glance, leaving Steve and Daisy laughing together.

“I didn’t expect our matchmaking to be _that_ successful,” Daisy giggled. “Well, since we seem to be so good at it, who shall we set up next?”

Steve considered that for a moment. “Fitz and Natasha?”


	23. Jubilee/Hunter, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **22\. Jubilee/Hunter, 7, for phoenix-173**
> 
>  
> 
> _The date is a disaster._

“So,” Hunter shoved his hands in his pockets and surveyed the burned-out restaurant they’d just arrived at, “I’m guessin’ this is pretty recent, luv?”

Jubilee suppressed the urge to tear her hair out. It had taken Kitty and Anna-Marie _forever_ to style it up elegantly in a swishy, curly updo. “They were open last week when I made the reservation,” she said forlornly.

“Looks like they probably wrote all the details down in an old-style paper book instead of some fancy online booking system, too,” Hunter noted. “So they couldn’t exactly call you to cancel. Was this one of your favourite places to eat?”

“Best pancake house in the city,” she said, even more miserably.

It was at that very moment that the first clap of thunder sounded. Within a minute the rain was pouring down on them. One glance up and down the street and Hunter knew it was pointless even trying to hail a cab. Putting his arm around Jubilee, he hastily hustled her along to the next doorway, a closed store, where they could shelter from the rain. Fishing his phone from his pocket, he said;

“Why don’t I order an Uber and we’ll go somewhere else to eat?”

Jubilee nodded silently, trying to suppress her impending tears. She really liked Hunter. When he’d asked her out - kind of sheepishly, with his hands shoved boyishly in his pockets just as he was doing now - she’d had to restrain the impulse to squeal all over him. Instead she’d very sedately said that she’d like that, and suggested that she pick a restaurant since he didn’t know the area.

Which had now backfired on her massively. Dropping her head back against the plate-glass window behind her, she sighed heavily; winced as she felt a wet curl come loose and stick to her neck. So much for looking glamorous.

“Ten minutes,” Hunter slid his phone back into his pocket and looked up. He stopped, arrested at the sight before him. Jubilee’s long black lashes were down, sweeping in sooty half-moons onto her cheeks, her hair tumbling in a mass of wet black curls around her beautiful face. She opened her eyes and gave him a very small smile.

“What a fuck-up.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” unable to resist, Hunter moved closer, put his hand on the window beside her head. “It gives me ten minutes to stand alone in the dark with the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen.”

It took her about five seconds to mentally compute what he’d just said, but then her eyes popped wide open and she gasped; “ME?”

He pretended to look around before giving her a slow smile. “Ain’t no one else in this doorway with us, luv.”

When the Uber driver arrived, he had to lean on his horn impatiently several times before the two of them even heard him, they were so absorbed in kissing. Jubilee’s hair was even more messed up than before.

Not that she gave a damn...


	24. Jemma/Gambit, 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **23\. Jemma/Gambit, 2, for dresupi**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Character takes their date to a place they consider amazing._

Jemma smiled a little nervously up at Remy as he offered his arm and escorted her through the base. She was distantly aware of quite a number of envious looks thrown her way - there’d been more than a few unflattering things said in her hearing when of everyone in the base, Remy chose to ask _her_ out.

As they entered the main hangar, she made to turn left towards the vehicle park, but Remy gently tugged her back the other way.

“Non, _chère_.” He led her towards the smaller side hangar where their quinjets were kept.

“Oh - we’re flying?” she looked up at him.

“ _Oui._ Too far to drive in a night, at least if I am to bring you back at a time Coulson would consider acceptable.” He smirked down at her.

“He’s really not my father, you know!”

Remy only smiled, that knee-melting smile that had every woman in the base (and not a few of the men) swooning over him, and led her up a quinjet’s rear ramp. “ _Non!_ ” he cried when she made to sit down in one of the rear jump seats, “sit back here, and leave Remy all alone without the pleasure of your company? _Mais non_ , you must come up front and sit with me!”

“I’m not a trained co-pilot,” she’d never sat in the front of a quinjet before, eyed with alarm the horrifyingly complex instrument panels in front of her.

“ _Pas de problème, chère_ , Remy has disabled your controls,” he murmured, giving her a sideways smirk before taking the quinjet gracefully out of the hangar and swooping off across the evening sky.

“So where _are_ we going?” Jemma thought to ask about ten minutes later, once the fascination of watching Remy’s easy competence in handling the complex aircraft wore off a little.

“Home,” he said simply, then, with another of those devastating sideways smiles, “New Orleans, _chère,_ and the best restaurant in the whole damn world to eat crawfish gumbo.”

“That sounds interesting,” she smiled, “but it’s rather a lot of effort for a first date, isn’t it?”

“Effort which you are worth, _chère._ Or are you concerned that Remy will not be able to top it for a second date?”

She had to laugh at that. “If I said that, you’d take it as a challenge and our second date would probably be in Paris or something!”

“That is an idea worth considering,” he agreed.

“Of course, that is assuming that you _want_ to ask me on a second date,” Jemma mumbled in some confusion when he didn’t say anything else for a few minutes.

“That is assuming that you would say yes if I did,” Remy pointed out, glancing back at her and smiling. “Let us begin with tonight, _oui_? Per’aps after you have tried Cajun cuisine you will decide that Cajun things are not to your taste, after all.”

Feeling a little more at ease, she smiled. “Perhaps. Perhaps I will have found a new favourite.”

“Perhaps even a… _craving_ ,” Remy said, his voice low and sultry, and Jemma had the very strong suspicion that her knickers just melted off completely.


	25. Rumlow/Colossus, 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **24\. Rumlow/Colossus, free choice, for bizby**
> 
>  
> 
> _I picked 9, because I didn’t get asked for it by anyone else!_
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters have a lovely dinner outside_

Brock wasn’t comfortable going out in public much, because of his scars, something which Piotr quite understood. So when Brock asked him to go around to his place for dinner, making it clear that he intended it to be a date, Piotr was both flattered and happy to agree.

It wasn’t a particularly big apartment, he saw as he ducked under the door jamb to enter, smiling at Brock. And the table was small, would be cramped with the two of them sitting there. Not that Piotr cared. He took a couple of steps in that direction, arrested by Brock reaching out to touch his arm lightly, stopping him.

“We’re not eating here.”

“We’re not?” Piotr raised his eyebrows curiously. He could see - and smell - the evidence of food preparation in the apartment’s small kitchen. It smelled amazing, actually. His stomach rumbled.

“No. Just carry this for me, would you?” A bottle of wine was held out towards him. Piotr took it with a bemused smile, glanced at the label, smiling to see that it was a very nice bottle of Napa Valley red.

“ _Da_ , of course - where are we going, then?”

“The roof.”

The roof, where he needn’t worry about hitting his head. The roof, where he found a beautifully laid table waiting, covered dishes of the most wonderful food he’d eaten in a long time, fine wine and some seriously good company. The roof, where they ate bathed in the soft glow of moonlight, until the moon set and there were only the stars twinkling high above them, where his date’s scars were invisible in the shadows.

It was the most romantic setting Piotr could ever have imagined.


	26. Steve/Bucky/Bobbi, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **25\. Steve/Bucky/Bobbi, 11, for probablyunnecessary**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters do something unusual._

“So,” Bucky asked conversationally, “is this a normal sort of thing to happen for you, on a first date?”

Steve, lying on the other side of Bobbi, chuckled quietly. “I have the strong suspicion that it is.”

“It isn’t!” Bobbi hissed a fierce denial. “Really! I was looking forward to that dinner!”

“You an’ me both, doll. We’ll have to find some takeout or something later,” Bucky grinned at her, but he didn’t seem to mind at all that their date had been ruined. Neither did Steve. In fact, they both seemed positively enthused about the whole thing, unlike Bobbi.

That said, neither of them was wearing a short skirt and high heels which was causing their bare legs to be scratched to hell by the sharp gravelled surface of the roof they were currently lying on. Bobbi shifted slightly, wincing. Her knees were _not_ going to look pretty, after this. If only she hadn’t recognized the man going into the restaurant just in front of them, with his entourage, as a dangerous Chechen arms dealer wanted by every government agency she could name and several she wasn’t supposed to know existed!

Still, it was a good thing she’d spotted him before he saw her, or things might have got messy. Lying on top of a roof staking out the restaurant while they waited for SHIELD to turn up and take the mook in quietly, though, really hadn’t been in her plans for their first date.

Steve started wriggling about then, and after a moment Bobbi realised he was taking off his shirt.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“Puttin’ this under your legs. You must be gettin’ scratched all to hell by this gravel.”

“But then your chest will get scratched!” Not that she was objecting to the view. At all. She hoped Bucky was keeping his eyes on the restaurant because right now Bobbi was feeling a touch distracted.

Steve grinned at her, edging the shirt under her legs. “Yes, but any scratches on me will heal up in under a minute. Your beautiful legs might take a little longer.” He gave her legs a lingering, appreciative stare that made Bobbi feel distinctly hot under the collar - and even angrier with the Chechen.

“Pick _my_ restaurant, wouldja,” she muttered crossly under her breath as the sound of vehicles in the street below made her look around to see several black SUVs pulling up.

“Never mind, doll,” Bucky’s arm snaked around her waist, as they watched the agents piling into the restaurant, leading the Chechen and his cronies out a few minutes later. “There are worse places to be than on a rooftop under the stars.”

She couldn’t deny that. Especially as Steve shifted in closer on her other side, his breath warm on her neck. She’d never felt more alive in her life.


	27. Bucky/Daisy, 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **26\. Bucky/Daisy, 13, for itsbuckybitch**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters find out what they have in common._
> 
>  
> 
> _This is NOT fluffy. Be warned. Angst ahead. Panic attacks and triggers are mentioned._

“Bucky! Bucky,” it took him a couple of minute to realise that it was Daisy speaking to him, that she’d followed him when he fled in panic, that she was crouched in front of him now, a few feet away, repeatedly saying his name in a calm, steady voice. “Bucky. Look at me. You’re quite safe.”

He dragged his hand down over his sweating face. “You’re not,” he said finally.

“I’ll take my chances.” One corner of her mouth quirked up slightly and she sat down right where she was, on the not-particularly-clean floor of the storage room he’d managed to end up in when he had to flee the crowded restaurant.

“You shouldn’t - I don’t know why you’re still here.” Slowly, Bucky let himself down from his painful crouch to sit on the floor too. “I’m a mess, Daisy. You, you’re…”

“Messed up too,” she said with a wry grin. “What, you thought I was on the run from SHIELD because I’m such a law-abiding citizen? I know, Bucky. I know exactly what it’s like to have your actions controlled by someone else’s will, to lose sight of who and what you really are because powers beyond what you ever thought possible took your agency away from you.”

He stared at her. She stared back at him with raised eyebrows, smiling wider at his poleaxed expression.

“I mean, I was gonna save the whole story for the second or third date, but,” she waved a hand vaguely around, indicating their surroundings, “if you want to hear it we could just go for full disclosure right up front.”

Despite himself, Bucky found himself smiling back at her. “Can’t be worse than the story of the Winter Soldier.”

“I dunno, I almost turned the entire world into an actual _Walking Dead_ universe. Can ya beat that?”

She was smiling, but there was pain in her eyes. Very hesitantly, Bucky reached for her hand. She let him take it, squeezing lightly back on his fingers.

“I don’t think even Project Insight would have messed things up _that_ bad, so no.” He looked at her curiously. “So. Tell me about the _Walking Dead_ , then.”

Shifting around to sit beside him, putting her back against the wall but keeping hold of his hand, Daisy sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I guess… it all started when I was saved from certain death by the injection of a mystery serum derived from the blood of a blue alien called a Kree…”


	28. Darcy/Hunter, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **27\. Darcy/Hunter, 15, for sneakytortoise**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._

_Well_ , Darcy thought, she really couldn’t fault Daisy’s intuition when the other girl had said “I’m gonna set you up with Hunter. You two will get on like a house on fire.”

The Brit was the funniest, snarkiest, most charming guy she’d met in, _forever_ , it felt like. And he wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, either, with that lean, slightly-starved look she found so attractive in a man.

He also shared her view that getting things done was more important than the how of getting them done.

Which was, of course, why they’d ended up setting fire to the house. They knew the bad guy was in there, they were underwhelmingly armed, and they’d voted by a majority of two to none that they weren’t fucking well going in there to get him out. Darcy had come up with the lighter from her pocket, Hunter made a Molotov cocktail from a bottle he found in the gutter and some gasoline he siphoned out of their fuel tank, and demonstrated his throwing arm.

“Just like cricket,” he said happily as the bottle sailed in neatly through his chosen window. Two seconds later there was a FWOOMP and flames dancing merrily.

“Awesome shot!” Darcy applauded.

“I thank you,” Hunter bowed extravagantly, leaned back on the hood of the car. “Sorry if this isn’t exactly what you had in mind when you suggested a date, luv, but when I saw that asshole I couldn’t pass up the chance to nab him.”

“Are you kidding, this is the most fun I’ve had in _ages_!”

Said bad guy came stumbling out of the house at that very moment, and Darcy took the opportunity to shoot him with her Taser. He went down like a sack of grain and Hunter chuckled.

“A girl after my own heart.” Pulling cable ties from his jacket pocket, he flicked out the Taser pins and secured the bad guy.

“Daisy did say we’d get on like a house on fire!” Darcy grinned.

“I doubt she thought we’d actually _set_ a house on fire, but eh. She’s done worse.” Hunter finished securing the unconscious man, opened the trunk of the car and dumped him in it. “What do you say we leave him in there for a while to consider his misdeeds and go get something to eat, huh?”

“I think this is the beginning of something absolutely beautiful,” Darcy said happily.


	29. Darcy/Sam, 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **28\. Darcy/Sam, 12, for indubitably26**
> 
>  
> 
> _One of the character’s favorite music is playing wherever the date is set._

Sam was the self-proclaimed best dancer of the (male) Avengers. Having seen Steve, Tony and Clint all dance, Darcy was inclined to believe him sight unseen, but she was certainly willing to check it out for herself by asking Sam out dancing.

It wasn’t her entire motive, of course. The fact that he was hot like the sun and she’d been dying to jump his bones for quite some time now might also have something to do with it. But she sold it to Sam as ‘Let’s go out dancing!’ and he seemed quite happy to jump at the proposal, so Darcy was calling it a date.

She hadn’t _quite_ expected Sam to squeal like a teenage girl as they walked into the club and the DJ put on Beyoncé, though.

“I love this song! _If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it_ ,” he sang, and Darcy stared absolutely hypnotized as he did a little shimmy.

“Unnn,” Darcy said incoherently, staring at the movement of his hips quite helplessly. Sam grabbed her hand.

“Come on, girl, we ain’t standin’ around while Queen Bey is singin’!” He almost towed her onto the crowded dance floor, slung his arms around her and proceeded to give an exhibition of bump n’grind dancing Darcy was fairly sure would be illegal in any number of countries. _And if it isn’t, it should be,_ she thought, trying desperately to keep her eyes on his. Sam was too nice for her to objectify him like this, but he was making it extremely difficult!

“You look hot, are you done already?” Sam yelled at her.

Despairing, Darcy shook her head. “I’m good!” she called back.

“Excellent! Wouldn’t want to think my partner had no _stamina_ , now!” He winked.

Darcy wished quite desperately for an ice bath.


	30. Claire Temple/Maria Hill, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **29\. Claire Temple/any female, 15, for trust-me-i-dare-you**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._
> 
>  
> 
> _I chose Maria Hill. In this AU, Claire has been hired to work for Helen Cho, who could after all really use an experienced ER nurse who knows how to deal with supers. Helen is the one who set them up on a blind date :D_

“Cheers,” Maria lifted her glass, tipped it against Claire’s.

Claire smiled back at the other woman. Maria looked very much the ice maiden, but she’d already demonstrated a wicked sense of humor. “Cheers.”

“So,” Maria downed the shot of tequila, reached for the bottle to pour another one, “tell me about your first time.”

Claire’s eyebrows shot up, and Maria snickered. “Not _that_ first time. I mean, you can if you _want_ , but I meant, first time you ran into one of the supers. First time you realised there were more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than were dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Claire smirked at the mangled Shakespeare quote. “You mean the night I found Daredevil in my Dumpster?”

That made Maria laugh as she poured more tequila into Claire’s glass too. “What the hell is it with supers and Dumpsters? Barton has an affinity for them too.”

“Jessica regularly smells like one,” Claire grinned. “They can be such a pain, can’t they? It’s like, they get these abilities but they have to lose all traces of common sense as part of the deal.”

“Ugh, don’t I know it!” Maria tipped back another shot of tequila. “Well, that’s why they keep us around, I guess!”

Claire poured more tequila. “Bloody superheroes, eh?”

“Damn right!”


	31. Victor/Darcy, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **30\. Victor/Darcy, 7, for evolution-of-magic**
> 
> _The date is a disaster._

Darcy was just about to take a mouthful of her pasta when her fork flew out of her hand and straight up in the air to stick to the ceiling. Mouth still open, she stared up at it before lowering her gaze to Victor.

“Why do I have the ominous feeling that everything is about to go to hell in a handbasket?”

Victor blinked, looked up at the fork on the ceiling, and said “Oh _shit_ ,” with great fervency, just before leaping to his feet. “I’m sorry about this, Darcy,” he said, “get down and hide until it’s all over…”

The door to the restaurant fell from its hinges with a tremendous smash of glass as a tall man stalked up to it.

“That’s Magneto!” someone screamed. Darcy was already hiding under the table, being pretty sure that any time Victor wore that expression was a good time to hide under tables. Peeking out, she saw through the customers currently stampeding out the back way that Magneto was indeed just walking up to face Victor.

“You’re not so easy to track down, considering how much you stand out in a crowd,” the powerful mutant leader said coldly.

“You get good at hiding when you’ve spent a century and a half being hunted,” Victor growled back. “You of _all_ people should understand that.”

That actually seemed to give Magneto pause before he shook his head. “It’s too late now, Victor. For you and me both. I need your assistance.”

“No.”

“I’m not _asking_.”

“No, Erik! How many people died last time, because of what we did? Enough!” It was a bellow of rage from Victor. Darcy felt a sudden upsurge of pride in him as he stood, unafraid, before the man who was often called ‘the most dangerous mutant alive’.

Magneto’s lip curled back in a snarl and he lifted his hands.

Victor roared with pain as his fingers raised up against his will, the adamantium sheaths on his claws tearing at his flesh as Magneto forced the metal to do his bidding. The bones in his hands began to crack as his fingers spread further and further apart. The agony was almost beyond bearing, even for him.

Victor had moved well away from their table to face Magneto; Darcy was pretty sure that the other mutant hadn’t even noticed her. Frightened, and quite sure that the man wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her to try and force Victor to do his bidding, she’d shoved her hand into her mouth to try and keep herself from making even the smallest sound.

Seeing Magneto literally torturing Victor, though, she couldn’t just sit by and do nothing about it. The metal-bender was facing away from her, and Darcy dived her hand into her pocket before her brain caught up and told her that what she was about to do was a really, really terrible idea.

She shot Magneto right in the ass with her Taser.

Darcy wasn’t sure quite what she’d expected, but the mutant went down _hard,_ twitching and spasming as the powerful electric current tore through him. His power apparently cut off when he fell because Victor’s hands dropped from where they were forced up.

“ _Darcy_?” Victor said incredulously, his eyes tracking the sparking wires back under the table where they’d been sitting. Bright blue eyes peeked out at him.

“Is he gonna get up? Because if he is, I’m not coming out.”

Victor drew back a boot and kicked the twitching Erik very hard in the head. The older man fell unconscious immediately.

“No, he’s not gettin’ up. I’ll get someone to come deal with him.”

“Good.” Darcy crawled out from under the table while Victor tugged out his phone and texted his brother. She gave Magneto a kick of her own for good measure, smiling triumphantly. “See how you like _that_ , asshole! Hah!”

“... I think I love you.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Victor said hastily.


	32. Fitz/Nat, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **31\. Fitz/Nat, 15, for miss-moonstone**
> 
>  
> 
>  _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun_.
> 
>  
> 
> _(Continues from[chapter 22](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7576402/chapters/17681002), where Steve and Daisy set Bucky and Jemma up on a blind date and may have got slightly overconfident in their skills as matchmakers)_

“So, this friend of Steve’s,” Fitz said nervously as Daisy led him into the Avengers’ bar, “what’s she like, then?”

“She’s a complete dork,” Daisy said airily. “Terrible sense of humour. Makes the _worst_ puns.”

Fitz grinned at that. “Well. That makes two of us.”

“I know. You two are gonna get along so great.” Privately Daisy thought Steve had taken leave of his senses, but Steve was insistent, and he’d spent a lot more time with Fitz than Daisy had with Natasha. Daisy wasn’t sure exactly what Steve had told Natasha to get her to agree to the blind date, but since he was pretty much incapable of lying, Daisy knew that at least Nat wouldn’t have any unrealistic expectations.

Natasha was mixing drinks at the bar as they walked up, smiled at both of them. “Hey, Daisy. And you must be Fitz. I’ve heard so much about you,” she said in her low, sultry voice.

Fitz made an unintelligible squeaky noise and turned a slightly alarming shade of purple, which Natasha affected not to notice, though the little smile hovering at the corners of her mouth told Daisy that she had most certainly noticed.

“Let me make you some drinks. You’ll want to relax,” she told Fitz, who gulped and nodded nervously.

Daisy suddenly realised that Fitz thought his date was yet to arrive, and Natasha had absolutely no intention of enlightening him. Yet, anyway. Smiling at Natasha, she slipped quietly away to join Steve who was waiting for her at a table off to the side, leaving Fitz and Natasha alone.

“Try this,” Natasha set a glass in front of Fitz. The drink in it was colourless, with a single olive on a cocktail stick resting in it.

“A martini?” Fitz said a little doubtfully, but he picked it up and took a sip. “Oh. Oh, yum, that’s really nice.”

Natasha smiled, picked up the olive in her glass and slid it slowly off the stick with her teeth, her lips pursing around it. Fitz stared at her in utter fascination before managing to tear his eyes away, looking down and picking up his own olive to eat.

“So I hear you came up with the ICER round,” Natasha said.

“Oh. Oh well, I… not just me. Simmons came up with the dendrotoxin adaptation, the delivery round was just…”

“A very clever bit of tech. You should have heard Stark when he got hold of the first one to take apart.”

“Really?” Fitz smiled, relaxing a little. “I had some ideas for other delivery methods, actually.”

“I’m all ears!” Natasha picked up her glass to take a sip, leaning her elbows on the bar to listen to Fitz.

It was about an hour and a half later, deeply absorbed in conversation, that Fitz suddenly realised that nobody else had turned up. He and Natasha had migrated to a table, more martinis in between them, talking about some of the tech he’d developed for SHIELD over the last few years, several pieces of which it turned out she’d used in the field.

He stopped mid-sentence, looking around, but the only other two people present were Steve and Daisy, on the other side of the room, lost in each other as usual. “I. Ah,” he looked at Natasha. She looked back at him, her perfect Cupid’s bow lips curling up in a knowing smile.

“Yes,” she said when he just mouthed like a stunned fish for a few seconds. “I am, in fact, your blind date.”

“Oh my God I have made such an idiot of myself,” Fitz said despairingly.

“Actually I’ve had an absolutely delightful time,” Natasha denied. “I’d love to do this again sometime soon. That is, if you’d like to? Maybe we could go out somewhere, get dinner.”

 _The Black Widow just asked me on a date_. Fitz was fairly convinced now that he’d fallen through a portal to an alternate dimension where Leo Fitz was actually handsome and cool as well as smart.

Somehow, he managed to suggest a restaurant, was even more stunned when she not only agreed, but pulled out her phone and called for a reservation. “Thursday night, eight o’clock,” Natasha told him with a pleased smile, hanging up. “I’m looking forward to it!”

“I’m waiting to wake up and realize this has all been a dream,” Fitz confessed.

Natasha smiled warmly, leaned over close - and pinched him on the wrist. “Wake up,” she breathed against his cheek.

“I’m still here,” he realized a moment later.

“So it’s not a dream. You won’t get out of our dinner date that easily.” Natasha smiled at how adorably flustered he looked. _I’m going to eat this boy alive._

_And he’s going to enjoy every minute of it..._


	33. Victoria Hand/Gamora, 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **32\. Victoria Hand/any, 14, for chandak562**
> 
> _Characters go to a fun fair._
> 
> _I picked Gamora, because I came up with a fun plot :)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The GotG crew are visiting Earth. Gamora’s going a bit stir-crazy because she wants to go out and SEE THINGS but SHIELD want to keep the fact that aliens are wandering around pretty quiet._
> 
> _It’s Victoria who comes up with a suggestion. It’s Hallowe’en, the one night of the year when Gamora can walk around in public unnoticed._

“Fantastic idea,” Fury said. “Take her somewhere.”

“Me, sir?” Victoria blinked.

“Do you see anyone else around here? You’ve spent a bit of time with her, I understand. Where would she like to go? And for fuck’s sake, do not take her to a bar and let her get drunk. Quill’s bad enough when he’s sloshed; I don’t need a green alien assassin chick making waves by chopping off the hand of some dickhead who looks at her sideways.”

Victoria had to hide a smile behind her hand. “I won’t let her get drunk,” she promised. “No bars. I’ll ask her what she would like to do.”

Of course, the first thing that Gamora said when Victoria asked was “Take you out for drinks.”

Victoria gave Gamora a severe look over her glasses. “That, I’m afraid, we can’t do.”

Gamora made a face, tossing the book she’d been perusing to one side. “What, then? What do your people do for fun?”

Momentarily stumped, Victoria thought frantically. “There’s a funfair, not far from here,” she suggested. “Literally everything there is designed for having fun…”

“What are we waiting for?” Gamora jumped to her feet, smiling, her silky black hair rippling. “Let’s go! I suppose I’ll have to wear one of those awful face veils again, though,” her smile faded. The face veils had turned out to be incompatible with her physiology; while she could wear one for a short period, her skin grew progressively more itchy the longer she had to wear it.

“Not tonight,” Victoria smiled at her. “It’s Hallowe’en. Tonight you will not be even remotely the strangest-looking person around.”

“So what is this Hallowe’en?” Gamora asked as they entered the funfair. She eyed someone clanking past wearing a pretty good replica Iron Man suit. “I… take it that is _not_ Tony Stark?”

“No,” Victoria chuckled. She’d planned to wear casual clothes herself before realising that if Gamora was going to blend in, Victoria should wear some sort of costume too. She’d plumbed the depths of her wardrobe and eventually come up with a black catsuit. A cheap pair of black cat ears and a cat tail completed the look. Gamora just wore her regular clothes and had already been complimented half a dozen times on her look.

“Fabulous texturing on the skin dye, darling,” a violet-skinned man called as they passed. Gamora laughed under her breath.

“I see why you said tonight is the one night I’d fit in.”

“I know it can’t have been easy for you,” Victoria said impulsively.

“It’s been a lot easier with you for company,” Gamora’s hand found its way into hers. “Hey. That looks fun.” She pointed upwards.

“The Ferris wheel?” Victoria followed her pointing finger.

“Yes. Since I can sit close to you and hold your hand while we take in the view.”

Victoria found herself blushing, but she was quite happy to follow Gamora over to the queue to go on the giant wheel, a small smile on her face as Gamora continued to hold her hand.


	34. Daisy/Frank, 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 33\. Daisy/Frank, 4, for dwyn5002
> 
>  
> 
> _Character learns something new about their date._
> 
>  
> 
> _A sequel to[chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7576402/chapters/17335594). _

 

Frank was surprised by how talkative Daisy was once she’d got over her nervousness. Once they’d both admitted how attracted they were to each other. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, off her bright, sparkling eyes, the animation in her features as she talked. Her slender hands moved gracefully, gesturing to emphasize her points. He could barely keep his attention on what she was saying, too busy watching her move.

“You are so damn beautiful,” he said suddenly when she paused to drink her coffee. “What are you doing with a beat-up old wreck like me?”

“Is that what you were busy thinking about, when you were so quiet?” she set her cup down, smiled at him.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he shrugged sheepishly.

“Well, I won’t deny the beaten-up part of your self-critique,” she reached up, traced gentle fingers over the break in his beaky nose, a not-completely-healed cut under his left eye. “You really need to keep your face out of the way of the bad guy’s fists.”

He didn’t say anything. ‘ _You should see the other guy_ ’ would have been completely redundant, being as there had been six other guys and they were all dead. A fact which Daisy knew well, having seen him in action the night before.

“However, you are neither old, nor a wreck,” Daisy continued when he was silent. Her fingers continued their gentle movement across his face, tracing his granite-hard features, the chiselled cheekbones. Frank closed his eyes, savouring the softness of her skin against his, like butterfly wings as they danced over his eyelids, stroked down his nose and paused, her fingertip against his upper lip.

“I’m thinkin’ that you’re looking at me through rose-tinted lenses,” Frank muttered hoarsely when she said nothing more. Opening his eyes to look at her again, he found her smiling wryly.

“I don’t do that any more. Things tend to look a lot uglier when those lenses crack.”

He cocked his head curiously, and Daisy sighed. “I told you I was an orphan, right?”

“Yeah, Matt said you and he met at St. Agnes.”

“Yeah, but it turned out I actually did have parents. I didn’t meet my father under the best of circumstances and I misjudged him badly… and then when I met my mother I kind of went too far in the opposite direction.”

Frank watched her quietly as she spoke, opened his hand in a silent gesture inviting her to continue. Daisy sighed.

“It’s a long story.”

“I got all night.” Frank gestured to the waitress. “Some more coffee over here, please, hon? You could just leave that jug, if you like…”


	35. Tony/May, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **34\. Tony/May, 11, for the-names-chnandler-bong**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters do something unusual._

“You want to do what?” Tony peered at May disbelievingly. She smirked at him.

“A picnic.”

“That… was not quite what I had in mind when I agreed to let you choose where we would go on our date.”

“My choosing was a condition of the date happening, Stark. You want to back out, that’s fine.”

“No!” Tony said hastily. “No, no, a picnic is… yeah. OK.”

“Have you ever even _been_ on a picnic?” She arched her brows at him as she led him to the base’s outer door.

“I’ve… eaten outside?”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” She smiled up at him, picking up the picnic basket she’d left ready. He gallantly offered to take it for her; she shrugged and let him. It was fairly heavy and Tony did have very nice arms. Watching his biceps bunch as he hefted the basket was an excellent view. “I didn’t want to go somewhere out in public, Tony, because I suspect there is literally nowhere we could go where you wouldn’t be recognised.”

He shrugged, a small smile playing about his lips. “I _am_ Iron Man.”

“Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, superhero,” May responded mockingly. “My idea of a good date isn’t one where the person I’m with is constantly distracted by other people seeking his attention. Just FYI.”

“Fair enough,” Tony said with a nod. “Okay, so picnic it is, then.” She was leading him away from the base, down a narrow path among the trees. “Very… rustic. Oh.” They emerged from the trees at the top of a small escarpment, a magnificent view of the wilds of West Virginia spread out before them. “Okay, this is quite aesthetically pleasing, actually.”

Laughing, May took the basket from him and set it down on the grass, pulling out a picnic blanket and spreading it for them to sit on. “I brought wine, too. Raided your wine cellar for it, so it’s the good stuff.”

“I’m liking this picnic idea more and more,” Tony turned to look at her, seeing her settling down on the rug and unpacking some food from the basket, along with the bottle of wine. “Okay, yeah, I can get behind this. Beautiful woman, beautiful day, wine and food. What more could I need?”


	36. Wade/Fitz, 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **35\. Wade/Fitz, no number, for luxyactually**
> 
> _I chose 10, because I haven’t had that one much and I thought it could be fun._
> 
> _One of the characters acts very shy._

“OUCH!” Fitz yelled.

“What?” Daisy spun, questioning, hands up and looking for danger.

“Bloody hell,” Fitz rubbed at the back of his head, “something hit me.”

They both stared at the only loose object within about a hundred yards.

“Is that a box of chocolates?” Daisy said, bemused.

They both stared warily at the slightly-dented box, half expecting it to explode. When nothing happened after a few minutes, Daisy very carefully ran a light vibration though it, feeling what was inside.

“It certainly _feels_ like chocolate. It’s not C4 or anything dense like that.”

“Why is someone throwing chocolate at us?”

“Could be poisoned,” Daisy shook her head. “Leave it, Fitz. Come on. Let’s get back to the others.”

Neither of them saw the red-suited figure who crept out from behind a building as they left, crouching to pick up the forlorn box.

“Never mind,” Wade whispered. “Maybe he just doesn’t like chocolate. We’ll try something else next time!”

The very next time Fitz was out in public - walking with Mack, as it happened, as they made a supply run - someone dropped a bunch of flowers on his head.

“Ugh, what the fuck?” Fitz pawed off the scatter of petals and stems and emerged, sneezing.

Mack started to laugh. “First chocolates, now flowers? I think you’ve got a secret admirer, Fitz!”

“A secret admirer with a penchant for throwing things at my head?” Fitz grinned, though, because he’d caught a glimpse of a rather familiar-looking red-spandex-clad leg disappearing over the top of the building’s fire escape. “You go on ahead, Mack. I’ll catch up.”

“Got your phone?” Mack checked.

“Yup,” Fitz held it up. “I’ll check in with you in a few minutes if I’m not at the shop by then.”

“See that you do, Turbo,” Mack nodded down at him fondly before going on and leaving Fitz alone.

Fitz debated climbing up the ladder, but really he’d never been much of a fan of heights. Leaning against the wall, he called out “Wade, please come down.”

“Wade who?” a slightly panicked voice called back a few seconds later.

“Wade Wilson, also known as Deadpool, also probably known as quite a few aliases I don’t know about, also known as the guy who just threw flowers at me and ran away.”

There was a short silence.

“Also probably the guy who threw chocolates at me last week, which I was too paranoid to pick up.”

“They were very nice chocolates, too,” the voice said, decidedly closer.

Fitz grinned. “I’m sure they were. I hope you enjoyed them.”

“I did, but I’d rather _you’d_ enjoyed them.”

“Maybe we could get some more and share them,” Fitz suggested, still unable to see where the mercenary was, though his voice seemed to be getting closer and closer. “Maybe you could even feed them to me,” he tempted, hoping to lure Wade out of hiding.

“Is that a date?” Wade’s voice was very close now.

“Sure,” Fitz said.

“Really?”

“Yes, Wade, it’s a date!”

“Excellent!” The window beside Fitz opened suddenly, startling him, and Wade popped his head out, grinning. “Because I’ve got some more of them right here."


	37. Matt Murdock/Natasha, 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **36\. Matt Murdock/Natasha, 8, for mattmurdocksgirl**
> 
> _Characters run into someone they know._
> 
> _Who could they have in common, I wondered? Why, another assassin who’s been known to play both sides…_

Matt was having the most delightful time. Natasha had seemed a little puzzled at first how to handle him when he clearly wasn’t just entranced by the way she looked. Everyone had already told him how beautiful she was, but it wasn’t that which had made him ask her out, as she was well aware. It was her quiet strength, her refusal to back down from Secretary Ross and his bully boys in the government. And once Matt had won her case, he’d taken the opportunity, now she was no longer his client, to ask her out for dinner.

Natasha had sounded surprised to find herself agreeing, but he could tell she was enjoying herself. Her heart beat calm and steady, she was eating with every evidence of enjoyment, and her soft laugh was genuine as they talked together.

Suddenly, he heard her pulse spike. Sensed her easing her skirt up to lay a hand on the pistol she had holstered on her inner thigh.

“What’s the problem?” Matt asked urgently, tensing. Two people had just entered the room, a man and a woman… he inhaled as they approached, groaned under his breath. He knew that scent.

“An old frenemy. Let me take care of this,” Natasha murmured under her breath, knowing he would hear her, but to her astonishment it wasn’t her Elektra addressed, but Matt.

“Matthew,” Elektra drawled. “Well, well. You _are_ keeping interesting company. Seems that your taste for dangerous women hasn’t abated in the slightest.”

Natasha looked from Matt to Elektra and back again in astonishment. “You two _know_ each other?”

Matt winced slightly. “You know that crazy ex everyone’s got?”

“Matthew, be nice,” Elektra chided.

“Seriously, you’ve tried to kill me any number of times, and you’re telling _me_ to be nice?”

Natasha leaned her hand on her chin, grinning. “He’s got you there, Elektra. Why is he still alive if you’ve been trying so hard to kill him?”

“I didn’t say that I was trying very _hard_ ,” Elektra said with a small smile. “How are you, Tashya? How’s Clint?”

“Still hasn’t forgiven you for Budapest.”

“Best if he doesn’t find out I’m in New York, hmm? Or I shall start to feel itchy between my shoulder blades.”

“Probably best you don’t stay too long, then.” The two women stared each other down for a long, tense moment before Elektra finally nodded, a slight smile touching her lips, and walked away.

Matt leaned back into his chair, blowing out his cheeks. He could _feel_ Natasha staring at him.

“Now I’m sure,” she said after a few moments of silence.

“Sure what?”

“Sure that you’re a whole lot more than _just_ an excellent lawyer. When were you planning to tell me? You can’t have thought that you could keep being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen a secret from _me_ for long.”

“Actually,” he confessed sheepishly, “I was planning to offer you a job, of sorts. Being a lone vigilante isn’t the easiest job in the world, I know from personal experience, and now you’re no longer with the Avengers, well,” he shrugged. “I thought maybe you’d like to meet a few of the folks who do their best to keep New York safe for the people who live here.”

Natasha tilted her head at him curiously, reached for the bottle of wine and topped up her glass. “All right. I’m listening!”


	38. Steve/Daisy, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **37\. Steve/Daisy, 7, forasdfsweets**
> 
> _The date is a disaster._

They had just sat down at an outdoor table at the restaurant Steve had picked when there was a sudden whooshing sound, lots of excited shrieking from folks nearby, and Iron Man thumped down in the street just a few yards away.

“Oh,  _no_ ,” Steve said bleakly.

“Really?” Daisy said crossly. “We didn’t even get to order yet!”

Tony flipped up his faceplate, clumping towards them, a strange look on his face. “Don’t try to run, Rogers!” he said, loudly. “Secretary Ross has had eyes on you for days!”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Daisy said softly, under her breath. Steve nodded minutely, getting to his feet.

“I don’t want to fight you, Stark,” he said mildly.

“That’s good, because I don’t want to fight you either. Just come in quietly and everything will be just fine.” Tony was speaking very unlike his normal speech patterns, emphasizing words strangely. He didn’t even look at Daisy, though they were both sure that he had to know who she was. “Don’t try anything silly now, you’re not even armed.”

Daisy had slid quietly out of her seat and away to one side. There wasn’t a lot she could do about the cellphone cameras pointing at Steve and Tony apart from to hiss at their owners to  _get back_ , but she did her best to make sure that she was  _behind_ all the cameras before nodding at Steve.

“I’m not armed, Stark, but you’re not taking me in. I didn’t sign the Accords and I don’t recognise any authority over me that Secretary Ross may claim.”

“Don’t do anything silly now,” Tony said loudly, twitching his head to the left and moving his fingers slightly. “You can’t fight me like this.”

“Don’t need to,” Steve said calmly. “Do it, Quake.”

Tony shut his eyes, confirming Steve’s suspicion that he knew exactly what was coming. Daisy made it easy on him, flinging him straight into the ornamental fountain Tony had nodded towards. She and Steve ran for it, ducking down alleys and side streets, running for the safe house where they’d left Sam and Wanda.

“Time to go,” Steve crashed through the door, running for where he had his go bag stashed. Daisy just scooped up her satchel from where she’d left it.

“What the hell… you two were going out for lunch!” Sam rose to his feet, startled.

“We had a party crasher,” Daisy said succinctly. “Stark.”

“Who said that Ross has had eyes on us for days, so it’s time to move on,” Steve came back out of the other room, back slung over his shoulder.

Neither Wanda nor Sam questioned, though Wanda moved to the window, her eyes going distant, flashing red briefly.

“Damn. I missed him. I’m sorry, Steve. He won’t wake up for a while.”

“Long enough for us to get clear, hopefully,” Steve shook his head at Wanda. “Don’t sweat it, Wanda. We had no indication that they were even close.”

“They’re not taking us in anyway,” Daisy put in. “Stark had no intention of trying. He pretended he didn’t know who I was and let me throw him into a fountain.”

“Still,” Sam put his hand on her shoulder, gave her a sympathetic grin as they all headed out the door. “Not exactly the way I think you hoped your first date with Steve might go.”

Daisy grinned at that. “Eh. Could be worse.”

Steve smiled, coming up alongside her and slipping his arm around her waist. “Yeah, we might have had a chance to actually order lunch and start looking forward to it!”

 


	39. Remy/Fitz/Darcy, 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **38\. Remy/Fitz/Darcy, 5, for girlofthearts**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters share a dessert._

“It’s a what?” Darcy was the one who spoke, but Remy was also looking doubtfully at Fitz.

“Cranachan,” Fitz said with a grin, setting the three chilled whisky glasses down on the table. “A traditional Scottish dessert.”

“The only traditional Scottish food I’d ever heard of was haggis, and I know for sure I don’t want to try that,” Darcy peered at the glass in front of her curiously. “This looks pretty good, though…”

Remy had already picked up a spoon. “It looks excellent, _cher_ ,” he said warmly. “You made it yourself?”

“I did. I can’t cook much but I can make this.”

“So what’s in it? Apart from what looks like half a ton of whipped cream, which is making me decidedly inclined in its favor,” Darcy grinned at him, reaching for a spoon herself.

“Toasted oats, fresh raspberries, honey, sugar, cream - and the finest Scotch whisky, which I stole out of Coulson’s office.”

Remy laughed at that. “I knew it, _cher_ , knew you weren’t as innocent as that face of yours suggests.”

Fitz smirked, scooped up some of the dessert on his spoon and licked it off slowly, aware that both of the other two were watching him. Darcy’s lips parted as she stared; Remy’s eyes hooded with lust.

“Who _ever_ suggested that I was innocent?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Some information on[cranachan](http://christinascucina.com/2014/06/cranachan-lovely-scottish-dessert.html) for you!_


	40. Bucky/Phil, 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **39\. Bucky/Phil, 1, for fadesealcat**
> 
>  
> 
> _Character misunderstands when/where they’re supposed to meet their date._

Phil had long since determined that Bucky wasn’t coming. An hour and a half late was pretty obvious, after all. He wasn’t about to show his disappointment publicly, though, so he just finished his drink, paid the bill and stood to leave. As he was exiting the restaurant, though, he almost ran right into Bucky on the way in.

“Bucky!”

“Phil!” Bucky grabbed at his arms, looking slightly panicked. “How many goddamn Olive Gardens _are_ there in this town?”

“Oh,” Phil blinked, began to smile. “Too many, apparently!”

Bucky groaned, ran a hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to stand you up, you must be starving.”

“No, I’m good,” Phil turned, though, looping his arm through Bucky’s. “Come on. Plenty of time. Now I know you didn’t stand me up, my appetite’s coming back. I feel like I could eat a _ton_ of breadsticks!”

Relieved that Phil didn’t seem upset that he was so late, Bucky hugged onto his arm, moving close to him as they went into the restaurant. “Anything you like. Dinner’s on me!”


	41. Steve/Daisy, 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **40\. Steve/Daisy, 13, for brutus-87**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters find out what they have in common._

“Your Italian’s excellent,” Steve complimented as Daisy finished ordering.

“Well, I did grow up in Hell’s Kitchen, mostly being tutored by nuns. They weren’t the easiest teachers but Sister Helena was Italian, she was probably the one I liked best. She could cook,” Daisy smiled, a little reminiscently. “She tried to teach me but it never really stuck - she just left me with a love of Italian food!”

That made Steve smile. “There were plenty of Italian folks where I grew up in Brooklyn, but once I got here I realised that even what they made was never quite as good as the original.”

“Of course, you were here during the war,” Daisy realised. “It’s very beautiful.”

They were sitting outside a tiny cafe in a small town on the shores of Lake Maggiore, in northern Italy. The lake spread wide and blue before them, tourists strolling its shores.

“It didn’t look like this then.”

“I suppose not.” She tried to imagine it, imagine the tiny town fortified for war, armed boats patrolling the lake, Nazis goose-stepping in the cobbled streets. There were still ghosts of them in Steve’s eyes, she thought, just as the ghosts of Hive’s fanatic creations were still in hers. Reaching out, she touched his hand gently, and he smiled at her wearily.

They’d both thought that they found a home with SHIELD, she thought, and they’d both been wrong. Now they were both on the run and somehow, they’d found each other, found someone to cling to through the storm raging over powered people.

The waiter brought their appetisers and she smiled a thanks, taking her hand off Steve’s. He reached for it again almost as soon as the plates had been set down again, though, and she let him hold it while she picked up her bruschetta with the other hand to take a bite.


	42. Maria/Remy, 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **41\. Maria/Remy, 5, for labratswhore**
> 
> _Characters share a dessert._

“Of _course_ you can tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue. Why am I not remotely surprised?” Maria shook her head as Remy grinned wickedly at her, placing the knotted cherry stem on the edge of her plate.

“My tongue has many talents, _ma belle._ ”

“You are the most outrageous flirt I’ve ever met.”

“I think the saying goes, do not talk the talk unless you can walk the walk.” He scooped up another forkful of their shared chocolate cherry cheesecake and quite deliberately licked the thick, gooey treat off the fork, knowing very well that Maria was watching him. “And I can most definitely walk the walk, _ma belle_. As you will discover for yourself, should you wish to.”

She took a large mouthful of cheesecake herself, in order to keep her traitorous tongue from suggesting that they should get the check right then. She was pretty sure that Remy knew exactly what she was thinking, though. He smirked and occupied himself with very, very slowly licking the tines of his fork absolutely clean. After a few moments he arched an amused brow at her.

“You might want to consider swallowing that, _ma belle_ , before you choke.”


	43. Daisy/Pietro, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **42\. Daisy/Pietro, 11, for charysaur**
> 
> _Characters do something unusual._

“Do you mind if we make a stop before we get lunch?” Pietro asked.

“Not at all,” Daisy shrugged, smiled up at him. “You were early, anyway. Where do you need to go?”

“I have to pick up some new shoes.” He looked a little sheepish, scrubbed his toe at the ground. “I go through a lot of shoes. Stark hasn’t figured out a composite for the soles yet that I don’t have issues with.”

“Huh,” Daisy blinked. “I… never thought about that. I suppose that would be a bit of an unfortunate - and expensive - side effect of your power!”

Pietro nodded, glad that she understood. “There’s a particular brand I like, but they’re not easy to get hold of. Anyway, the shoe store called and said some came in my size, but they’ll only hold them for me until this afternoon…”

“What are we waiting for, let’s go!” She linked her arm through his and tugged gently. “Can’t have Quicksilver going slow on the job!”

He chuckled. “Never happen, even if I have to run barefoot.”

“Ouch,” Daisy said with a wince, just imagining what the friction would do to the soles of his feet at the speeds he routinely ran at. “Definitely not. Maybe FitzSimmons should have a chat with Stark, perhaps they can science something up for your shoes…”

“Do you really want to put those three in a lab together? I thought Coulson had banned that from happening?”

“...you might be right.” She smiled as they approached the entrance to the shoe store. “Ooh, those boots are cute…”

“They’d look nice on you,” Pietro looked from the boots she gestured at, back to her. “Why don’t you see if you have them in your size, try them on?”

She couldn’t resist, spoke to a hovering salesperson as Pietro went to see about his running shoes. He came back a few minutes later to find her trying the boots on, and to her surprise, knelt down to help her lace them. Strong hands wrapped around her foot, testing the fit, pressing in at her toes and heel.

“They feel like a nice firm fit, you should try walking in them, maybe run a few paces.”

Daisy laughed, standing up. “You know, this is the first time I’ve ever been on a date where the guy took me shoe shopping.”

Pietro grinned up at her as she started to walk up and down. “Some girls would call this a dream date.”

“I might be one of them,” she smiled back at him. “At least, if you don’t mind me trying on another pair or two…”

“Which ones?” he straightened up from where he’d been lounging. “I’ll get them for you!”

“Definitely a dream date,” the sales assistant whispered to Daisy as Pietro sprang to his feet. Daisy laughed, agreeing with her.


	44. Remy/Steve, 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **43\. Remy/Steve, 14, for thepoolofthedead**
> 
> _Characters go to a fun fair._

“Coney Island,” Steve said in amusement when he realised where they were headed. “Bucky put you up to this, didn’t he?”

Remy smirked, hands in his pockets as they strolled in the entrance. “He might have suggested to me how much you like this place.”

“I won’t throw up on the Cyclone this time!”

“Well, that remains to be seen, does it not, _cher_?” Remy’s smirk was pure evil. “After all, we shall have to eat first. A hot dog or three, perhaps some cotton candy, a sugary drink or two, who knows, your stomach _might_ rebel once we’re on the rollercoaster.”

“You have a really weird idea of what’s romantic on a date,” Steve pointed out.

“Oh, I don’t know, _cher_. There are rides here where we can cling on to each other tight.” Remy gave him bedroom eyes. “I do not object to _that_ idea at all.”

Blushing, Steve realised he didn’t mind that idea either. When Remy’s long fingers curled around his, he didn’t pull them away.


	45. Remy/Bucky, 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **44\. Remy/Bucky, 1, for diannasfandomplace**
> 
> _Character misunderstands when/where they’re supposed to meet their date._

_He wasn’t coming._ Bucky looked at the clock for the hundredth time in the last hour. Nobody was an hour late for a date, not without calling or messaging to say why. Remy was standing him up. Bucky had been stupid to think that someone as amazing, as powerful, as Gambit would be interested in _him_ in the first place. With a final sigh, he slid a ten under his coffee cup to leave as a tip for the waitress and stood up… just as Remy walked in the door.

“Bucky, _cher!_ ” Remy came striding over, smiling broadly, placing his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and leaning in to kiss him lingeringly on both cheeks. The scent of him washed over Bucky, warm and delicious, making his head spin briefly. “Nice table, you got here early?” Remy frowned in puzzlement as he saw the empty coffee cup, the ten underneath it.

“ _You’re_ late, I thought you weren’t coming,” Bucky muttered sheepishly as Remy nudged him back into the booth sitting down alongside him, long thigh pressing against his.

“I am not! Your text said 12 o’clock!” Remy said indignantly, pulling his phone out.

“I… what?” Bucky blinked. “I thought I said 11!” He leaned over as Remy swiped a finger over the screen and brought up the messaging app. ‘Cafe on the corner of 26th and 15th, 12 o’clock?’

“Oh my God, I did say 12!”

“You thought I stood you up,” Remy looked at him perceptively, putting his phone away, sliding an arm around Bucky’s waist. “And after I have pursued you so diligently these last few months, begging you to agree to a date, you thought I would waste the opportunity? No, _cher_ , Remy would never.”

Bucky hung his head, a blush scalding his cheeks. “I thought you’d changed your mind.”

“It would have taken a great deal to keep me from you today,” Remy murmured, lips close enough to Bucky’s own that Bucky could feel the heat of Remy’s breath on his mouth. “I would have fought _le Diable_ himself for the chance.”

Smiling shyly, Bucky looked up to meet the Cajun’s eyes. “I’ve been really looking forward to it as well,” he confessed.

“ _C’est bon!_ Then let us order some food and begin the date, _cher!_ ”


	46. Rumlow/Sif, 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **45\. Rumlow/Sif, 14, for aryacoulson**
> 
> _Characters go to a funfair_

“What the hell is this place?” Rumlow looked around, bemused. Everything around them looked strange and yet vaguely familiar at the same time. There were food stalls, but they were selling foods he’d never seen before. He shuddered with revulsion as a violet alien with a vaguely doglike head tipped its head back to feed something yellow and extremely squirmy into its mouth.

“It is the funfair!” Sif said happily. “It is almost seventy years since last the fair came to Asgard; I have been looking forward to its return with great anticipation!”

“A funfair,” Brock looked around with new eyes. “Oh, I see.” The rides looked nothing like anything he’d ever seen on Earth, not to mention the food, but yes, now that Sif had said it, he could see the similarities more clearly.

“I thought that you might enjoy the experience?” Sif said, looking a little apprehensive. Smiling, he reached for her hand.

“I’m fascinated,” he claimed, pointing with his free hand at something he _did_ recognise. “Come on. I want a go at the Alien Gun shooting range!”

Sif chuckled. “You will have difficulty with that one. It is designed for hexapedals or octopedals - those guns require four arms to shoot!”

“Two of yours and two of mine,” Brock said with an irrepressible grin, “reckon we could give it a red-hot go!”

Sif laughed as he tugged her over to the stall, pointed to the huge gun that had caught his eye. The stall-holder babbled at them, waving its arms; Sif babbled back and apparently won the argument, because a moment later she was swiping a credit chip and hefting the gun with a broad grin.

“I’ve always wanted to try one of these, but never thought of using someone else’s arms to help me make it work!”

“Well, I might have an ulterior motive,” Brock helped her brace the gun on the rail, “since it means I get to put my arms around you while we figure it out.”

Sif’s giggle was surprisingly girlish, her glance flirty as he slipped his arms around her. “I do not think that I mind that at all.”


	47. Sam/Laura Barton, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **46\. Sam/Laura Barton, 7, for taleasedubh**
> 
> _The date is a disaster._
> 
> _Laura is Clint’s sister-in-law in this AU, mmkay?_

Clint’s eyes were boring a hole in his back as Sam opened the car door to hand Laura in. Sam very pointedly didn’t look at his team-mate, or Cooper Barton, standing on the porch beside Clint with his arms folded, wearing a matching glare. Cooper was almost as protective of his mom as Clint was.

Almost.

But Sam had finally decided that he could take the poisonous glares and muttered threats (from Clint, anyway, Cooper wasn’t _quite_ that brave) and asked Laura if she’d like to go get dinner with him. Her smile when she said “I thought you’d never ask” had convinced Sam that he was definitely making the right decision.

“Don’t mind them,” Laura said as Sam got into the driver’s seat and started the car. “They’re just protective of me since Barney died.”

Sam knew that Barney had died in the fallout from the collapse of SHIELD. He still felt obscurely guilty over that, though Laura had sternly told him that was nonsense.

“It’s good,” Sam said in response to Laura’s remark. “I just can’t quite shake the itchy feeling between my shoulderblades. Especially since Cooper demonstrated to me that he’s nearly as good a shot with the bow as his uncle.”

Laura’s laugh was soft and tinkling, a warm, sweet sound. “They won’t shoot you. They’ll be eating rice and beans for a month if they even _think_ about it too hard. They’re just messin’ with you.”

“I know,” Sam glanced across at her and grinned as he pulled the car out of the long farm driveway and onto the main road.

“But let’s not think about that, huh? I’m so looking forward to this, I don’t know when the last time I last went out to dinner was.” Laura settled down into her seat, smiling happily, and Sam bit on his tongue. He wasn’t going to speak ill of the dead, even if Barney Barton apparently hadn’t been much of a husband and father. A beautiful wife and three gorgeous children - yeah, one of them born posthumously - but he’d never been around much, had left Laura largely to fend for herself, hidden away on an isolated farmstead just in case one of the numerous enemies he’d made in his long and infamous career happened to find her.

It was about a forty-minute ride into town, and they were half-way there when a tyre blew out. Sam was alert and managed to keep the car from spinning, rolling it gently to a halt at the side of the road.

“Damn it,” he muttered. “I’ll change it, Laura, no trouble.”

“Um,” she smiled a little sheepishly at him, reaching to stop him as he made to get out of the car, “actually… that’s a problem. I blew one about three weeks ago. I’ve been running on the spare. Forgot to ask Clint to take the other one into town to get it repaired.”

“Oh, hell!” Sam shook his head at her. “Laura, you should have said something! Clint’s not the only one who can help you out, you know!”

She smiled at him, ducking her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. The only problem is that we’re now gonna have to call Clint for a rescue.” Sam dug in his pocket for his phone.

“Uh, that might be a problem too. There’s no cell service around here.”

“... you’re kidding me.”

“City boy,” Laura teased. “I’m afraid not. It’s about a five-mile walk from here to a spot where you can get service.”

“Ugh,” Sam groaned, dropped his forehead to lean it on the steering wheel. “How hungry are you?”

“Why, what are you thinking?”

“Well, it’s either a long, boring walk to call Clint and have him come get us, or we can just wait here and he’ll turn up eventually wondering where the hell we are anyway,” Sam pointed out.

“That is very true.” Laura considered, then nodded. “I vote for option two. Hey, I’ve got some of Cooper’s trail mix in here,” she opened the glove compartment and pulled out a bag, “so we won’t starve, and I can always find something in the freezer for us to eat when we get home!”

When Clint arrived a little before midnight, steam practically coming out of his ears, it was to find the two of them lying on the roof of the car pointing out star constellations to each other and giggling like kids.

“Seriously?” he said wryly, getting out of his truck. “You never even made it to town?”

“Nope,” Laura was lying with her head pillowed comfortably on Sam’s arm. “But, you know,” she smiled at Sam, and he thought how beautiful she looked in the starlight, “I’ve had a lovely time anyway.”

“Me too,” he agreed fervently.


	48. Bruce/Scott, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **47\. Bruce/Scott, 15, for ironman-out-keele (set up by Tony and Sam respectively)**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._

“Hi! Hi Hulk, Bruce, Dr Banner I mean!” Scott babbled nervously, shaking Bruce’s hand and simultaneously staring at him wide-eyed. The Hulk’s alter ego was such a mild-looking man, from his soft chocolate eyes to his fluffy dark curls, just starting to be spattered with grey at the temples, which only added to his distinguished attractiveness. “I’m such a big fan!”

Bruce smiled. He’d already been warned about Scott’s habit of babbling when nervous. “Yes, Tony told me that you were sixty feet tall. At least briefly. I’d call that pretty big.”

Scott smiled, slipping into the seat opposite Bruce at the table. “I’m normally pretty small, actually.” He seemed to think about that for a second, glanced down at his crotch. “Well, not _that_ small. Not _normally_. I mean, when I’m being Ant-Man. _Then_ I’m small. Oh God, I’ll just stop talking now.”

Bruce gave up the battle to keep in his laughter and bent double as the chortles burst out. When he finally managed to get himself back under control, he looked back up to find Scott sitting back in his chair looking sheepish but a little pleased.

“Well, I think that broke the ice nicely, didn’t it?”


	49. Tony/Pepper/Darcy, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **48\. Tony/Pepper/Darcy, 7, for bumpkin-is**
> 
> _The date is a disaster._

“I’m so, so sorry about this,” Pepper said for the twentieth time. “Tony really was looking forward to this.”

“Pepper,” Darcy reached out her hand, touched the other woman’s fingers lightly, “it’s okay. Really. Please stop worrying about it. I knew when the two of you asked me out who Tony is and what that means. I’m quite happy just to spend some time getting to know you right now.”

Pepper’s smile was a little shaky. “Thank you, Darcy. I’m enjoying this too, but… I think you know you don’t have my full attention.”

“I don’t think either of us can really focus knowing he’s out there fighting,” Darcy admitted. “Look, no pressure. Let’s just try and eat this delicious lunch and then we’ll wait for him together, hmm?”

Pepper’s smile was a little wider at that, and she took a bite of her salmon at Darcy’s urging. Neither of them had much appetite, just picking at their food and watching the TV screen on the wall opposite them. The battle looked like it was nearly over when one of the last flying Doombots, damaged and flying erratically, somehow evaded Tony’s fire and collided directly with his head.

Darcy’s shriek echoed Pepper’s as they both shot to their feet, hearts in their mouths, watching with horror as Iron Man plummeted earthwards. At the last moment a streak of purple and gold intercepted, though, Vision catching the tumbling red figure and bearing him away.

Pepper and Darcy both spun away from the screen and ran for the door, only one thought in both their minds. They met Helen Cho on the way into med bay, the beautiful doctor shrugging on her lab coat as she ran.

“Update, FRIDAY!” Helen demanded crisply, striding over to the Cradle. There was no response, making Pepper and Darcy look at each other in open dread.

Vision’s calm British tones sounded a moment later, though. “FRIDAY’s interface was damaged by the collision. Mr Stark is conscious and speaking, though.” An instant later the transmission altered to include the sound of Tony’s voice, cursing a blue streak.

Pepper sagged in relief. Darcy put her arms around her and the two women hugged tightly, silently. He couldn’t be all that badly hurt, not if he was swearing like that.

It was a matter of minutes before Vision carried Tony into the med bay, but with his armour interface failed and Helen concerned about possible injury to his neck, it took Vision another half hour to get Tony out of his armour, the billionaire muttering angrily under his breath the whole time.

Pepper and Darcy knew better than to get in Helen’s way, so they stayed back, holding on to each other and waiting impatiently until she finally gestured them forward.

Tony was lying in the Cradle by now, a neck brace collar around his neck as Helen prepared to scan him for any major injury. His hands were moving, though she’d ordered him to be still; he reached out as Pepper and Darcy approached.

“Darcy, sweetheart, I’m so sorry about our date.”

“Don’t apologise,” she begged, “please don’t do that. You were doing what you have to, it’s fine.”

“I’m glad you two were with each other,” Tony told them.

“Me too,” Darcy tightened her hold on Pepper’s hand. “Next time, you gotta be there too.”

He smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

“Step back now, please,” Helen instructed, and they did so reluctantly, watching as the doctor pressed a breathing mask over Tony’s face and his eyelids fluttered closed. “He’ll be fine,” Helen promised them quietly as the Cradle closed over the sleeping billionaire’s body. “I promise.”


	50. Rumlow/Scott Lang, 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **49\. Rumlow/Scott Lang, 15, for lj-todd**
> 
> _Characters are on a blind date, but surprisingly having a lot of fun._
> 
> _Set up by Sam and Steve, obviously :D_

Scott looked dismally up at the all-too-familiar pink and blue logo before sighing and stepping forward. The automatic doors opened to admit him and the black-haired man sitting in a booth alone looked up and smiled.

 _Oh no, he’s hot,_ was Scott’s immediate first thought. Sam and Steve had giggled like a pair of schoolboys when setting up this date, telling Scott how attractive their buddy was, how they were convinced he and Scott were made for each other.

And then they’d arranged this goddamn blind date in a Baskin Robbins, of all the terrible omens.

“Scott?” the handsome man asked, corners of his eyes crinkling in an utterly devastating way as he stood up and smiled. “I’m Brock, Brock Rumlow.”

“Hi!” Scott could almost feel his traitorous mouth running away with him. “They don’t serve anything hot here, you know.”

“Well… yeah. It’s an ice cream shop. We could go somewhere else, if you like?” Brock cocked his head and smiled quizzically.

“No… no. I was just checking that you knew.” Scott slid into the booth, ducked his chin. “I got fired from a Baskin Robbins once.” _Why did I say that?_ he wondered. _Why not just say that I worked at one for a while?_

“Yeah?” Brock grinned, though. “Sounds like a fun story. Tell me more.”

“The manager found out about my shady past,” Scott shrugged awkwardly. “One of my weirder life experiences. He treated me like some sort of criminal celebrity and then fired me anyway.” Remembering what had happened just before, he grinned. “It was such a shitty job. I’d just given up on this customer who was determined that we _must_ sell something hot. Despite being an ice cream shop. Tried to order a pretzel, then a hot dog...”

Brock cracked up laughing. “That explains your need to tell me that I couldn’t have anything hot to eat,” he gasped out between chortles.

Scott grinned sheepishly. “I guess it was something of a mentally scarring experience?”

“Oh, we’ve all had a few of those. Most of mine lately have come from Cap and his damn habit of jumping out of planes without a parachute.”

“I’ve done that too,” Scott admitted.

“Oh Christ, really?”

“Yes, but I only do that when miniature and riding a flying ant!”

Brock stared at him incredulously for a few seconds before shaking his head and starting to laugh even harder than before. Scott found himself joining in, seeing the funny side.

“This really isn’t how I wanted to start the date,” he finally said. “I’m afraid being in a Baskin Robbins threw me. I haven’t been in one since I got fired.”

“That’s OK,” Brock reached across the table, placed a warm hand over Scott’s, smiling at him. “At least I know you’ve got a sense of humor. Now. Can I buy you an ice cream?”


	51. Jemma/Bucky, 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **50\. Jemma/Bucky, 8, for i-believe-in-unicorns-and-you**
> 
> _Characters run into someone they know._

“Here,” Bucky held Jemma’s chair for her to sit, and she blushed a little before sitting down. He really did have beautiful manners. She could still hardly believe he’d asked her out, scraping the toe of his boot on the floor sheepishly as he did so, almost as though he thought she might say no.

“Thank you,” she murmured as he slid the chair in for her, took his own seat opposite and smiled at her, his bright blue eyes shining. He slid a menu across to her.

“The service isn’t fancy here, but the food is absolutely incredible.”

“It looks very authentic,” Jemma agreed. The tiny little Italian restaurant even had red and white checked tablecloths and candles stuck in chianti bottles, but the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen made her quite confident that the food would be as excellent as Bucky claimed. “I love Italian food.”

“One of my favourites, too,” Bucky said, smiling, gazing at her in fascination as she examined the menu. Jemma was so pretty, so feminine and smart. It had taken him way too long to pluck up the courage to ask her out, but frankly he’d been convinced she was way out of his league.  He’d been astonished when she’d almost fallen over herself to accept the invitation and then blushed, embarrassed by her own eagerness. She looked up now to catch him staring at her, blushed again and smiled shyly back at him.

“You’re kidding me,” an amused voice said, making both Jemma and Bucky start and look away from each other, “this lovely lady had the bad taste to let you talk her into a date, Barnes?”

“Birdman,” Bucky said with a sigh, “please go away.”

“Not a chance,” Sam grabbed another chair, spun it around to the table and seated himself. “I gotta make sure you’re treating Dr Simmons properly. And that she knows all about your bad habits.”

Bucky groaned and buried his face in his hands. Jemma looked from him to Sam, cocked her head in thought and then said;

“Let me tell you about one of _my_ really terrible habits, Mr Wilson.”

“Yeah?” Sam turned his shit-eating grin onto her.

Jemma picked up her fork and showed it to Sam. “I have a really _terrible_ habit of _viciously_ stabbing a fork into the nearest body part of people who attempt to crash my dates.” She brandished the fork menacingly in the direction of Sam’s hand, resting on the table close by her plate setting.

Sam hastily removed the hand, and then, as Jemma consideringly eyed his knee near her chair, got up. “Yup. You know what, I think you two make a really lovely couple. Have a nice date!”


	52. Bucky/Natasha, 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **51\. Bucky/Natasha, 11, for mefiora**
> 
> _Characters do something unusual._

“This is really what you want to do?” Bucky asked a little doubtfully when Natasha opened her door to him. She was dressed in scruffy yoga pants and a faded, greyed T-shirt with a rip in the hem.

“It really is what I want to do. Getting dressed up and going out somewhere glamorous is _work_.”

He supposed that was true, so he shrugged and followed her into the apartment. He’d followed her request to ‘dress scruffy’ and was wearing a pair of battered sweatpants and a T-shirt with paint stains on it he’d stolen out of Steve’s closet - almost everything _he_ owned was basically new, since he’d come to the Avengers with nothing but the tattered, bloodstained clothes on his back.

Bucky followed Natasha through to her living area, where she promptly flopped into a pile of beanbags on the floor, looked up at him and grinned before patting the bag next to her.

“Come on. Get comfy. I have popcorn.”

“OK,” he kicked his boots off and settled down beside her, smiling as she handed him the bowl. “So, what’s this movie we’re watching?”

“Not _one_ movie. A movie marathon,” Natasha corrected him. “The Shrek movies. Trust me, Bucky; you’re going to love it.”

He smiled and settled more comfortably into the beanbag. “I’m gettin’ to spend time with you. What’s not to love?”


	53. May/Tony, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **52\. May/Tony, 7, for redrowan**
> 
> _The date is a disaster._

“The Maria Stark Memorial Fund Annual Ball,” May said rather flatly, looking at herself in the mirror. “ _This_ is Stark’s idea of fun things to do on a first date.”

“He did send you this utterly amazing dress, though,” Daisy sighed enviously, making a slight adjustment to one thin, sparkling strap.

“Which I have to wear high heels with. _Heels_ ,” May said in tones of deep disgust, holding up the pair of spindly, strappy stilettos.

“Are you taller than Stark in them?” Jemma asked with interest.

“... I don’t think so. He’s not _that_ short.” May looked consideringly at the heels. “Help me into them?” she asked Daisy pleadingly. “I doubt I can sit down well enough in this dress to get them on.”

Daisy laughed at her, knelt down at her feet to help put the shoes on. May was perfectly balanced until she had the first one on, but then had to hold onto Jemma’s shoulder to have the second on.

“I thought looking fabulous and still kicking ass in heels was a required skill for SHIELD specialists,” Jemma giggled.

“I can still kick ass,” May said menacingly.

“I don’t doubt it!” Daisy fastened the last thin strap. “There. You’re done.”

May took a few careful steps, hands out to her sides to ensure her balance. “How do I look?” she asked a little uncertainly.

“Like a goddess,” Jemma said quite sincerely, making May smile.

“Stark isn’t gonna know what hit him,” Daisy agreed, handing May her tiny silver purse. “Mack’s gonna drive you. Have an amazing time and tell us all about it later. We’ll wait up.”

“I wouldn’t,” May said with a sly smile. “I have _plans_.”

She left to the sound of the two girls laughing their heads off, a smile on her own lips. Mack’s astounded, admiring expression as he held the car door open for her gave her a further confidence boost, and she walked into the gala feeling as though she actually belonged among all these glamorous folks with their designer clothes and shoes and their jewels. She saw Stark, then, turning to smile at her, his expression openly admiring as he took in the way she looked.

May smiled back at him, took a step forward, and the new, shiny surface of the underside of her shoe slipped in someone’s spilled drink.

She was too well balanced to fall, but she did stumble for a moment, the heel of her shoe snapped with a crack like a gunshot, and a man standing nearby laughed cruelly as she stumbled in front of the staring, assembled crowd and very nearly fell on her ass.

“Fuck you, Hammer,” Tony snapped, striding forward, and May realised there was about to be a spectacular confrontation if she didn’t head it off. Putting the foot with the broken heel down, she bent the other knee to lift her foot up to her butt, reached down and snapped the other heel clean off, leaving herself holding a spiked, sharp piece of plastic nearly five inches in length. As Hammer puffed his chest up and glared back at Stark, she debated just throwing it through his left eye, but in the end concluded with a sigh that would probably cause more trouble than it was worth, tempted though she was.

In the end, she just moved to stand between Tony and Justin Hammer, smiling sweetly at Hammer and holding the broken heel up under his nose.

“And that is?” Hammer said with a disdainful smile, quite clearly writing her off as some bimbo.

“A reminder.” She tucked it into the breast pocket of his beautifully tailored suit, patted his chest lightly. “That you should never laugh at the misfortunes of others, lest they laugh in turn at _your_ misfortunes.”

“What misfortunes?”

“Things like _this_.”

He wasn’t expecting the knee to the balls. It was obvious from the way he was standing; he’d been braced for a punch from Stark, hadn’t expected May to confront him at all. She put everything she had behind it, though, watched him crumple with extreme satisfaction.

“Oh my god,” Tony said in her ear, “I literally cannot take you anywhere.” He was laughing as he spoke, though, and May grinned.

“Come on. Aren’t you having way more fun than you expected to?”

“I certainly am, but I think I’d better get you out of here before he comes around and decides to press charges. He’s got quite a lot of witnesses.”

She sighed, but she let him take her arm and hustle her out. “Stop worrying, Stark. I’m here under a fake name,” she told him as he led her to a bright orange sports car.

“Yes, but if I ever want to take you anywhere in the future we might have issues,” he pointed out.

“You’d want to, after I just made a complete idiot of myself and kneed a billionaire in the nuts?”

Tony grinned, paused in the act of opening the car door for her. “Melinda May, I’m ten times more fascinated now than I was before I asked you out the first time.”

“Oh.”

“... I’m just now aware that I can’t take you out in public without risking life and limb.”


	54. Rollins/Wanda, 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **53\. Rollins/Wanda, 4, for loriemitchell**
> 
> _Character learns something new about their date._

“Wait,” Wanda stared in disbelief. “You’re telling me one of them isn’t real?”

“That’s right.” Jack grinned at her.

“Which one?” She honestly couldn’t tell. Both eyes were tracking perfectly, and they were both the exact same shade of hazel-green.

“This one.” He tapped his cheek just under his right eye. “SHIELD made pretty damn good prosthetics, though. It’s actually better than the real one. Telescopic vision… I can even get text messages direct to it.”

“... okay, that’s really cool.” Wanda leaned her chin on her hand and smiled. “Your brain has actually learned to re-interpret the artificial signals from your cyber-eye and put them back into stereoscopic focus with your natural left eye. That must have taken quite a lot of time and effort to re-route those neural pathways.”

Jack blinked at her. She raised her brows at him. “What?”

“How the heck do you know that? You didn’t list _neurosurgeon_ among your many qualifications, did you?”

“No,” she blushed a little realised she had to tell him the truth. “I… looked at myself through your eyes. To see how you see me. That’s why I found it hard to believe that one of your eyes wasn’t real - you have perfectly normal vision, according to your own brain.”

A little taken aback, after a moment Jack smiled, reached out to touch her hand lightly. “Did you see anything else when you were in there?”

Wanda cocked her head at him curiously. “What do you mean? I didn’t go poking around in your mind…”

“I meant, when you looked to see how I see you. Did you feel any of the emotions attached to the vision?”

Her cheeks flushed.

“Because if you didn’t, I could put a name to them. I think you’re beautiful, brave, unique…”

“I think I picked up the gist,” she mumbled shyly.


	55. DaisyBones, 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **54\. DaisyBones, 12, for avioletfrost**
> 
> _One of the character’s favorite music is playing wherever the date is set._

“You’re kidding me,” Daisy said as she realised Brock was humming under his breath. “Oh God. Of course you like Guns ‘n’ Roses.”

He gave her a mock-offended look. “They’re only the greatest rock band of all time!”

“Help.”

Brock’s grin was quite wicked. “Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I’d hide,” he sang, in a surprisingly excellent, tuneful tenor. “And pray for the thunder, and the rain to quietly pass me by.”

Everyone in the restaurant was turning to stare; Daisy tried to hide her face in her hands, but Brock reached out to grab them, carrying on singing, his voice soaring into the chorus.

To her utter horror, just about everyone else in the place joined in.

Her face was flaming red by the time the song finished and everyone started applauding; Rumlow stood and bowed to the room extravagantly before sitting back down and grinning lazily at her.

“You’re an ass,” Daisy said, but she couldn’t help the little smile playing around her lips.

“One of my most endearing qualities. Well, that and my excellent singing voice.”

“I’ll give you the excellent singing voice, but your taste in music really needs some work.”

“What, are you planning to hack my phone and mess with all my playlists?” He grinned wickedly when she looked guilty, leaned in and whispered “Won’t do you any good. I still have everything… on _vinyl_.”

“Could be worse,” Daisy leaned back towards him, smiling in return. “At least vinyl is kinda retro and cool. You could have said _on cassette tape._ ”

“I’ll have you know I’m a vinyl purist, I’ve never owned a cassette in my life!” His indignant expression made her laugh out loud.


	56. Ward/Wanda, 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **55\. Ward/Wanda, 5, for lark-cale**
> 
>  
> 
> _Characters share a dessert._
> 
>  
> 
> _Note: I couldn’t find much in the way of traditional Rroma desserts. I did find[this Walnut And Raisin Cake](http://www.romanicookbook.eu/en/2015/08/29/walnuts-and-raisin-cake/), recipe provided by the _  
>  [ _Romski Informacijski Center Anglunipe_ ](http://www.anglunipe.si/)  
>  _, Slovenia, so that’s the one I went with._

 

“Wow, that smells good,” Grant inhaled deeply as Wanda came back into the room. She smiled shyly at him.

“You said that I could make the dessert, since you were cooking dinner. I hope you find this as tasty as I found that pasta.”

“I’m sure I will.” It smelled nutty and fruity; even though he’d eaten a good meal he found his mouth watering. “What is it?”

She said something utterly incomprehensible in Sokovian, laughed as his brow wrinkled. “Walnut and raisin cake. It is a little like bread and butter pudding, I think, only… not quite.”

“I think that’s English.” Grant watched as she placed the plate down on the table, took off her oven mitts and uncovered it.

“It is still warm,” Wanda told him, serving him a square of the cake onto a plate and handing him a fork to eat it with. Mischievously, before he could grasp the fork, she snatched it back, used it to cut off a corner of the cake and lifted the fork to his lips.

Grant’s eyes hooded as he looked at her, but he opened his mouth and took the bite. Chewing and swallowing deliberately, he nodded. “Delicious.”

His voice had taken on a deeper tone, low and sensuous. Transfixed, Wanda stared into his eyes, darkening as he looked at her. He reached up to take the fork from her lax fingers, cut off another corner of the cake and lifted it to her lips.

She hadn’t even finished chewing before he tugged gently on her hand, drawing her into his lap, and kissed the breath right out of her.


	57. Daisy/Natasha, 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **56\. Daisy/Natasha, 7, for the-boob-aesthetic**
> 
> _The date is a disaster._

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Natasha muttered.

“What is it?” Daisy turned to look around, saw Tony Stark walking in the door of the restaurant, Pepper Potts on his arm. “Oh.”

“Of all the restaurants he could have eaten at, why does he have to pick this one tonight?” Natasha grumbled to herself, watching as Pepper headed for the restroom and Stark looked around. There was no point in hiding, her red hair stood out too much - Stark’s face twisted into a wicked grin and he headed purposefully in their direction.

“Get lost,” Natasha said in an amiable tone as Stark stopped at their table, but there was steel beneath the light words. Daisy had the sudden urge to hide under the table, stopped herself. God knew what Stark would have made of that.

“On a date, Nat?” Tony asked gleefully, turning to look Daisy over. His brow furrowed behind his douchey blue shades before he said “Wait a minute, I remember you!”

“What?” Daisy blinked. “No, we’ve never met.”

“I never forget the face of a pretty girl who’s also smart,” Tony shook his head. “Don’t remember your name, but you were the one who hacked her way into my private car garage right after I finished rebuilding the Tower.”

“You must be thinking of someone else,” Daisy said hastily.

“No, it was definitely you,” Tony pointed at her, his grin widening. “You were wearing Black Widow cosplay.”

“Oh God,” Daisy dropped her face into her hands as Natasha’s eyes lit up.

“I don’t suppose you have video?” she asked.

“Somewhere, sure. I can look it up.”

Daisy made dying-cow noises and Natasha chuckled. “Alright. Fuck off now, Stark.”

“But this is just getting interesting! Pepper and I could join you…”

“I’m carrying at least seven lethal weapons on my body. Not to mention that I could kill you with this salt shaker and make it look like natural causes.”

“Point taken,” Tony affected a sigh, chuckled again at the scarlet-cheeked Daisy, and headed off.

“Please forget you ever heard that,” Daisy begged. Natasha’s smirk widened.

“Oh, I don’t know. It has possibilities. I wouldn’t mind seeing you model a Black Widow suit, actually. I think you’d look pretty damn hot in it.” Her voice dropped, developed a sultry, seductive note.

“Well. Maybe when you put it like _that_ ,” Daisy said. “But I’m hacking Stark’s archives to erase that footage.”

Natasha chuckled softly. “I’ll give you a hand.”


	58. Jemma/Bucky, 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **57\. Jemma/Bucky, 3, for mercialachesis**
> 
> _Character tries to make their date laugh._

They were halfway through eating their dinner when Jemma began to wonder if Bucky was actually enjoying himself. He seemed very quiet and serious, but when she asked him if there was something on his mind he said no.

 _Is he regretting asking me out?_ she wondered, looking at him through her lashes. _Am I too boring for him?_ She had the distinct feeling that she’d been babbling nonsense to try and fill the awkward silences, making herself sound like a silly girl. Bucky looked faraway, distracted, as though he wasn’t listening to her at all, and Jemma fell silent, poking at the remaining food on her plate with her fork.

Jemma had fallen silent, making Bucky suddenly wonder if he was boring her. She was so bright and vivacious, and honestly the sound of her accent, the way she talked, the intelligent way she addressed every topic on which she spoke, just utterly enchanted him. He felt so uneducated next to her, felt that his accent made him sound like a dumb hick. _She must be bored senseless_.

Bucky took a deep breath. _Say somethin’ Barnes, or this’ll be the first and last date you get with her_.

“You accent reminds me of Peggy Carter, y’know,” he said, and cursed himself for an idiot. _Great job, Barnes, bringing up another woman on your date._

But Jemma’s eyes had turned round with surprise and delight. “Director Carter! Of course, you knew her. What was she like? _Really?_ ”

“Terrifyin’,” Bucky said honestly. “Did you hear about when she shot Steve’s shield four times to test it out, when he first got it?”

“No!” Jemma laughed delightedly. “Oh, please tell me more!”

He did, the stories getting more and more outrageous until Jemma was holding her stomach from laughing so hard, the tears running down her face.

Bucky smiled as he took a sip of his drink. _Well. Hopefully that’s the question of a second date answered._


	59. Daisy/Victor, 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **58\. Daisy/Victor, 3, for afrikasisi**
> 
> _Character tries to make their date laugh._

A picnic had been a good choice for a first date, Daisy reflected. Victor was very clearly more comfortable out of doors; the tension had visibly gone out of his shoulders as they sat down on the picnic blanket she’d brought. He was quiet, though, his hard face sombre. On impulse, she threw a grape at him, laughed in startlement as his reflexes kicked in and he literally snapped it out of the air.

“What the heck?” Victor rumbled, after biting into and swallowing the grape. Daisy giggled mischievously.

“You looked like you were thinking dark and gloomy thoughts, and it’s too nice a day for that.” She threw another grape and broke up laughing as he was apparently impelled to snap that one out of the air too.

“Quit it,” Victor said, though a small smile began to play around the edge of his lips. “I don’t even like grapes that much.”

“I am not throwing you little bits of raw meat, like a zookeeper!” Daisy had to laugh at the mental image.

“I don’t even like raw meat!... much,” he amended when she gave him a cynical stare. She made to throw another grape but he lunged across the picnic blanket and caught it before it even left her hand, rolling her beneath him in the process. She promptly dug the fingers of her free hand into his ribs, wriggling them to find the ticklish spot.

Victor _yowled,_ twisting off Daisy to escape. She followed him with tiny tendrils of her power, vibrating them along his sides until she hit the sweet spot and he burst out into deep, body-shaking roars of laughter.

“That’s better,” satisfied, she finally stopped. “You were far too grim and silent for it being such a nice day.”


	60. Daisy/Trish/Steve, 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **59\. Daisy/Trish/Steve, 10, for squirt304**
> 
> _One of the characters acts very shy_

“So,” Steve looked nervously at the two beautiful, smiling women sharing a table with him. “How does this, uh, work?”

Trish’s eyebrows rose. Daisy grinned. “Do you give birds and the bees advice on your talk show, Trish?”

“I can if I have to.”

Steve felt himself blush to the tips of his ears. He still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up on a date with _both_ of these incredibly stunning women he had thumping crushes on. Or what, exactly, they expected to happen after this. He was fairly sure that they were together - he’d come across them kissing a time or two and nearly died of combined embarrassment and lust - but when they’d both approached him to ask him to lunch he was completely thrown. If he’d been thinking clearly he’d probably have declined, or tried to. Daisy and Trish were two very difficult women to deny anything to.

“That’s not… what I meant.” Steve’s mind was now full of imagery he really didn’t think he’d ever be able to erase. If only Stark had actually managed to invent that selective brain bleach he and Banner kept chattering on about. Not that Steve really wanted to lose the images his overactive imagination was supplying, it was just that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to think of anything ELSE.

“No?” Trish said, grinning at him just as wickedly as Daisy. “Because _we’ve_ discussed how it could work. Extensively.”

“Fantasized about it, actually,” Daisy added. She and Trish both watched as Steve slid to the floor in a dead faint.

“... I think we broke him,” Trish said.


	61. Fitz/Vision, 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **60\. Fitz/Vision, 2, for reprehensiblewombat**
> 
> _Character takes their date to a place they consider amazing._

“What the hell is this place?” Fitz breathed in wonder. He wasn’t even sure what city they’d been in when Vision told him to close his eyes, swept his gold cloak around Fitz, and the most unsettling feeling that they were passing through something that should be solid swept over him. On being told to open his eyes, he’d felt quite queasy, at least until he saw the long, dimly lit corridors that surrounded them, intersecting huge glass-walled rooms filled with books.

“ _Archivum Secretum_ ,” Vision said, “which is poorly translated to mean _Secret Archives_. Though there _are_ secrets here, if one only looks.”

“Wait.” Fitz froze. “The _Vatican_ Secret Archives? The place where, like, only four priests are allowed to enter and you have to know that a document exists before you can ask to see it? _Those_ Secret Archives?”

“Indeed. A fascinating repository of human knowledge. There are books and documents here replicated nowhere else on the planet.” Vision nodded gravely. “I have been researching the Church’s records for mentions of the Kree.”

Fitz had been about to ask what the _hell_ Vision was playing at breaking into the Secret Archives, but that… that was a perfectly good reason, actually. “Have you found anything?”

“I have, some pre-Christian records found in a cave in The Lebanon some years past. I wish to investigate them further, and I thought that you might like to help me?”

Fitz could absolutely not think of a single thing he’d rather be doing with his evening than investigating the Vatican’s Secret Archives. “Is it true that there are unpublished manuscripts by Leonardo da Vinci here?” he asked as he and Vision walked along.

“Yes, but the Signore never met any Kree. I can show you where to find the manuscripts, if you like.”

Fitz did a little skip of joy.

_And finally, I’m done! Thank you to everyone who sent me a prompt for this series, and thank you for waiting so patiently for me to be done with them!_


End file.
